USL PRO Feature
Thursday, June 5, 2014
There has already been a lot of hard work done to make St. Louis FC a reality by the club’s ownership group. For Head Coach Dale Schilly, however, the hard work of building a team for the club’s inaugural season is already underway.
“We’re doing a lot of watching games, and looking at players, and organizing staff,” Schilly said recently. “The guys in the front office are putting the pieces of the puzzle together. People think it’s a down time, but it’s a very busy time, but it’s a very exciting time as well.”
Schilly, a longtime coach in the St. Louis area, is certainly eager to get things moving. With a blank canvas - as he describes it - to work with, Schilly is looking forward to the challenge of building a roster from scratch as opposed to times in the past when he inherited players when arriving at a new situation.
“I’ve had opportunities where I’ve taken teams that I’ve inherited, so to be able to pick what you, filter through what you feel like you need in order to be successful, is very exciting,” he said. “We get to make of it what we want, and do as we see fit in what we need to put together in order to be successful.”
Success is something that Schilly has brought wherever he has coached. After arriving in St. Louis 20 years ago and becoming a key figure in the area’s youth soccer scene, Schilly became part of the St. Louis Scott Gallagher organization after a merger between clubs created one of the top development academies in the United States.
In addition, Schilly got the chance to dip his toes into the professional ranks with the ill-fated AC St. Louis in 2010, taking over after the departure of Claude Anelka mid-season. Schilly was able to take a squad that had won only twice in the opening three months of the season and post impressive victories against sides such as the Montreal Impact and Portland Timbers, now both in MLS. That experience was part of the reason why Schilly was selected to lead the new club on the field, with the backing of a strong ownership group that will allow the club to thrive in what has long been a soccer hotbed.
“I felt it would be a good move for me, not just for me personally but for the organization,” Schilly said of his appointment. “I was prepared to take the next step, and really I’ve wanted to help lead this part of the organization through the initial stages. I think [Executive Director] Pat [Barry] was of the same mind, that this was a good, logical step for not only me, but for the organization, and that it would be a good move for us.”
With his involvement with St. Louis Scott Gallagher, Schilly has also been on board for the development of the club off the field.
“I’ve been part of the planning, Jim [Kavanaugh] and Tom [Strunk], the leadership of our organization, Pat Barry, Jeremy [Alumbaugh] and really our whole management team of our organization has spent a lot of time working through details, working through what it’s going to take to be successful, really being diligent about taking our time and being thorough, and I think that’s a big piece of it.”
Schilly will certainly be as thorough when it comes to build his squad and anticipates there will be a local flavor to the side when it takes the field in 2015. While that might form a foundation for the squad, though, the search will be on for players who will be able to help the side compete quickly.
“The game has grown so much throughout the country,” he said. “We see it at the youth level with the number of high-quality players that we come across, across the country, that for sure you have to use the community and the local players as a good base, but you have to go out and find the best players that you can for what fits into your business plan and how you’re trying to make it work.”
And the players that are going to make it work for St. Louis, at least in the short-term, are going to have one key characteristic.
“I think it’s going to be really important that we have good, character guys, guys that are selfless, willing to buy in to what the program and the overall scheme is going to be, because in these early years it’s going to take some hard workers, some grinders, some guys that are going to be selfless in the way they commit themselves to the team to get results.
“It’s going to be really difficult in the beginning to grab the players that are some of the special guys that you see in the league, so initially we’re going to need guys that are willing to roll up their sleeves and go to work.”
For now, Schilly and St. Louis’ leadership will be the ones rolling up their sleeves as they aim to bring a side that will play attractive, and pragmatic, soccer to St. Louis Soccer Park. While 10 months would seem like plenty of time accomplish that, Schilly knows there is a tall task ahead of him.
With that said, Schilly sees an energy and momentum building behind the new team, which bodes well for not just a successful inaugural season, but a club that can thrive in the long-term.
“There’s a buzz,” Schilly said. “I’m on the fields every night, I’m around kids and parents and families that love the game, but we’re extended into former players, and players that are in college or beyond college and in the workplace, and everybody is talking about the team. We see stuff on the news regularly, the people in the community are really excited about the team, and I think when you add the World Cup and the excitement that builds around that, the level of excitement, the level of anticipation for what’s to come, everyone is really looking forward to it.”