MLS NEXT - NEW TIER

Families-

Let me first say welcome to our St. Louis Development Academy family!

For our current families thank you very much for the support you show your sons, their teammates, their coaches, and their club! We are incredibly grateful and fortunate to have the best families in St. Louis a part of our club.

For any family looking to make a change and become a part of our club we welcome you and celebrate our success’ on and off the field with our current players, coaches, and parents.

Many of you may not know, but STLDA is a young club that has grown and developed significantly in a short period of time and we strive to maintain that calculated growth to ensure we are developing our players the right way. We are a development club as opposed to a recruitment club. We take significant pride in the philosophy, the methods, and the success of our player and coaches development.

The overall goal of our pathway is to support players from their 4:4 stages up to their 11:11 programming to help them achieve whatever goal they have by playing the game. For some it is purely to have an enjoyable experience with their friends, for others it is about trying to become the best player possible for their high school teams, and for an elite few it is about their development to play at the collegiate level. In our short tenure as a club we have been able to help many players achieve that goal of playing at the Division I, Division II, Division III, and NAIA levels.

Our boys pathway has just been realigned to have a clearer more straightforward path for our players and coaches development. When you come in to our club as a U6-U8 player you can experience Three Stripes, an introductory program for our grassroots players. As they develop and mature, they will move into our U9 and U10, also known as our 7:7 age groups where their participation will be with MYSA (Missouri Youth Soccer Association) and SLYSA (St. Louis Youth Soccer Association) and participate in local leagues and tournaments. The 9:9 age groups of U11 and U12 will also participate in MYSA and SLYSA events, but may also travel a little distance for tournaments to get the more competitive experience. Once the players reach the U13-U19 age groups, our 11:11 teams they will have options based on their interest and talent level.

In the 11:11 age groups we have three tiers for our players to choose from to participate and continue their age and level appropriate coaching plan. Tier 3 is for our less experienced players still wanting a local league with limited travel for additional games and tournaments. Tier 2 is with the National Academy League. This league is a regionalized league with travel that limits nights on the road with conference games within a small region, one regional event and one national event. Tier 1 is our elite teams who participate in the MLS Next New Tier platform with a little farther conference travel, regional events for U13/U14 and national showcases for U15-U19 teams which will give our high school aged

players exposure to the same college coaches that MLS Next Academy teams will see. This is a fantastic benefit to us being a part of the MLS Next New Tier. These players can also continue to participate with their high school teams in the fall season and join our MLS Next New Tier teams at the conclusion of their high school seasons.

As you can see through our focus of following US Soccer’s Player and Coaches Development plan we have been able to have a holistic approach to the individual development of your sons and through that development those small parts to the whole of the team have provided us numerous successes for our teams with multiple conference championships, MYSA State Cup Championships, and numerous participants with the USYS Regional and National tournaments.

Lastly, we have had many players move on from our club into the St. Louis City pathway programs as well as their Academy teams. Our coaching staff has significant years of experience within the college game and has networked and built relationships with many college programs across the country which in turn leads to opportunities for our players after club soccer to pursue academic and athletic (soccer) careers. We are incredibly proud of our track record of placing student athletes into top programs on all levels of collegiate soccer.

If you are already part of the STLDA family I thank you again for all your support of your son, his teammates, their coaches, and our club. If you are thinking about being a part of our family, I encourage you to reach out to me and I can help guide you in which of our tiers and directors will be best for you.

Yours in soccer,

Dave Beck

Boys Academy Director

STLDA Executive Director

dbeck@stlouisda.com