Pitch to Pro
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of Ozark United FC. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, Northwest Arkansas. This is a journey. We want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, Our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way.
Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club.
Pitch to Pro
Stoppage Time Special: Raising A Fortress In Arkansas
Supporter culture doesn’t start with a logo. It starts with people who show up, test ideas in the real world, and build a sound that carries a team. We share a stoppage-time highlight reel on how our Arkansas community is shaping a fortress before a pro side even takes the field, dry runs at college matches, chant writing in multiple languages, and a clear plan to make visiting teams dread our end line.
We break down the nuts and bolts of atmosphere design: capos, drum patterns, flags, smoke, and march logistics, all tested live instead of kept in a doc. Drawing inspiration from Austin’s south end and global terrace traditions, from South America to Europe, we’re crafting chants that feel authentic to Northwest Arkansas. That means simple hooks, layered sections for stamina, and a repertoire that welcomes first-timers while rewarding the diehards who never stop singing.
There’s also a reminder of why this matters beyond ninety minutes. Fans once stopped a breakaway league in just seventy-two hours, proving that organized supporters shape the future of the sport. Our commitment is to listen, stay accountable, and keep the culture open-source: transparent planning in Discord, inclusive leadership, and rituals that reflect the community’s voice. If you care about stadium identity, matchday rituals, and the craft of turning noise into impact, you’ll find a blueprint here for building a home advantage from the ground up.
Enjoyed the ride? Follow and subscribe for more. Share this with a friend who loves terrace culture, and drop your chant or stadium nickname idea in the comments. Your voice can help write the songs we’ll sing together.
Welcome to the Stoppage Time edition of the Pitch to Pro podcast. This is the highlight reel of some of the best moments from the show so far. And every other week, we will be bringing you a special five to seven minute segment featuring the best stories, tales, and moments of the podcast. At the university, you mentioned, Carlos, that they have practice literally every Tuesday for Austin FC. You guys are almost doing a little bit of a practice run at the university and you know work that out with Colby Hale, which I think the coach of the Lady Racerbacks, which I think is just so cool and smart, to kind of have a bit of a whole year trial run on the early side of things, maybe two years, but that's super cool. So I'm stealing your thunder, but what are you guys kind of talking about? What are you guys doing right now? Talk about that.
SPEAKER_00:Actually, that's kind of something that Colin and I were talking about last Thursday. I wasn't able to be there. I had to work a junior high uh American football game uh down the street. But I called Colin after I got done. And, you know, we may not have a team name, club name, you know, supporter group name or anything. But we figured that, you know, maybe as this season kind of winds out, we'll try and and sneak into one, I say sneak in, uh, you know, squeeze in another another razorback game, uh, you know, to try to do a trial run and everything that we don't per se let Colby know and just kind of show up and and surprise and do. And we've got some chance that that I've re-uh worded that that I'm hoping to get to lead and everything. Yeah. Um, and we're hoping that next year, you know, we can get a few more of those matches to where we can, you know, have a true full dry run in regards to you know our own instruments, our own flags, you know, potentially maybe some some smokes. Okay, you know, if we can get that approved by the university, if not, you know, a small little march down the street with it. Yep. Um, you know, some other stuff that that we've talked about right now between just Colin and I is our vision for the supporter group. Um, you know, and for me, I've told Colin, you know, I'm I'm a I've got something to base mine off of of what I want because I have Q2. I have, you know, the supporter section in Austin, you know, and what I want our supporter section to be. I want teams to come in to USL Arkansas stadium in the future and and be like, we don't want to play here. They are nuts. You know, I want to have that that fortress type, you know, uh effect. I want to be, you know, whether it be the 12th man, the 12th player, whatever. You know, we want to be that that influence that the team's able to pick up our energy and and just deliver, you know, and provide, you know, for the fans more than than what maybe some other clubs are doing for fans that deserve better right now. Yeah. Slide uh awesome.
SPEAKER_02:No, that's great. I mean, Colin, what else are you guys kind of talking about, you know?
SPEAKER_01:So uh, I mean, we're coming up with a lot of chant ideas. Okay. Um, and I think, you know, one of the special things about this area is how diverse it is. Yeah. Um, I mean, there's people from literally all over the world, different backgrounds, different cities that they've come from. Um, and so, you know, we want that to be reflected in our group. So, you know, have chants that are in not only English but Spanish. Maybe, you know, take inspiration from South American chants, European, Central American, you know, the chance that we have in North America that are original, besides, you know, just go Sounders or go Austin FC or whatever. Right. Um, so you know, the chants are popping off. Um in our we have a Discord server. Okay. And so that's where we're kind of talking with that. And then, you know, we're just kind of looking ahead, talking about, you know, what do we want the stadium to be called? Not like the the corporate version of the name, but in Austin they had McCall. And so that's what they call the the fans still call the stadium, even though it's called Q2.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so talking about that, what we'd want our name to be, um, which we've kind of decided we might want to push that off until y'all have a name. Okay. Um, so we're just kind of having a bunch of ideas going around and just good discussion, really. So Okay.
SPEAKER_02:That's awesome. Uh, what are you mentioned some chants? What are some of your favorite chants? It doesn't have to be ones that you've discussed. You don't have to give anything away, but just some of your favorite ones, whether it be Austin FC, I know the American Outlaws have some great chance. I mean, I believe that we will win. I know it's kind of overplayed now, but back in like the 2010, 2014 World Cup when that really kind of started, I think it was Brazil. Um, when that really started to pop off, that was just something that went nuts. Like I was in Minneapolis at the time and actually led a bar of almost 2,000 people like outside, you know, crowded around the bar. Um, and that was super cool. That's my kapo moment.
SPEAKER_00:Uh well, you know, if I'm ever gonna be stepping away, I may call you to come come step in the stand for it. I put my bullhorn down. So um favorite chant?
SPEAKER_02:That's a hard one. I'll just put you on the spot.
SPEAKER_00:Austin FC wise, I would have to say my favorite one is one that we call uh Club Cuervo.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Um just because it's one of those that we go nuts. We've got a few in the works right now that haven't uh surfaced yet that that may overtake that. Um I'd have to say other than that, there's one that um San Lorenzo does that's just a banger every time I hear it. Okay. Um I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Other than that, I've got a I'd have to dig into Do you want to do you want to give me a little flavor?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if I don't know if I could do that. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:A lot. A little flavor? No? Okay. Uh I think you know, one of my only other like really fun, not it it wasn't fun, but uh let me take that back. Something that really proved how powerful that connection is, I think, for me, between supporters and for the world, honestly, was when and and this is going, this can be its own podcast episode, and we won't get into it, but Google, the UEFA Super League. Yeah, and what some of the top European uh uh club teams tried to do a couple years ago. And I want to say all our clubs are guilty to being in the all of yes, all three at this table: Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, some of the most storied clubs in the world and largest brands in the world in all of sports, not just soccer. We're trying to break away and do something, you know, uh different, money generator, all those things. Um, and the fans erupted all over the world and led these marches, and within 72 hours, it was dead. Because clubs were like, oh my lord, we are gonna lose half of our fan base, if not more. And we will never hear the end of this. Holy cow! And a lot of it is like, okay, how can you be that out of touch if you, you know, don't understand your fan base? So we will try not to be that out of touch, and we will hold hope that you guys hold us accountable for that, right? Um, but within within 72 hours, they had spent years, you know that they did, yeah, planning this thing behind the scenes, behind the scenes, guaranteed, 72 hours like that gone. Thank you for joining us for this stoppage time special of the Pitch to Pro podcast. If you've enjoyed the conversation, you can click watch the full episode here. Be sure to tune in next Thursday for a new episode of the Pitch to Pro podcast, the official podcast of Ozark United FT. Available on YouTube, Instagram, and everywhere you get your podcasts.