What is the origin story of Sioux Falls City? Who founded the club and what inspired that to happen?
Sioux Falls City FC was formed in December 2021 to bring a higher level of soccer to our community with a mission of empowering women through soccer. Sioux Falls City is owned by Melissa & Gabe Nelson and Emily & Eric Thomas. Our 2 families came together through soccer over a decade ago when our middle daughters played club soccer together. They both had aspirations of playing college soccer and so their individual journeys began of finding opportunities to grow, develop and be inspired. As soccer moms, Emily Thomas and Melissa Nelson saw a huge need in our community for role models for young girls to be able to look up to and allow these girls to dream big. Sioux Falls provides professional and preprofessional men's sports, but nothing for women. We set out to change this and in doing so, have found that our community has embraced and lifted up a women's soccer team.

In which league do you play and with so many options for clubs these days, how often is that evaluated
SFCFC plays in the Women's Premier Soccer League (WPSL). This is the oldest and largest women's preprofessional soccer league in the United States with over 140 teams! The geography of our Northern Conference includes 8 other teams with the farthest travel being around 4 hours. The proximity of the other teams and the league requirements made this league a natural choice. With so much changing for the landscape of women's soccer, we continue to be inspired by teams playing in the USL-W and the NWSL and have big dreams for Sioux Falls City FC! We are in the process of evaluating our inaugural season and making plans for next year. We are thinking forward to set our organization and players up for success and will continue to have the conversations and do the research to ensure we are in the league that is the best fit for our club.

Does your club operate or work with a youth organization? If so, are youth players developed to see playing time with the first teams as a goal?
Sioux Falls City is owned and operated independent of any club team. Many of our players have come from the local youth club organization and so we have worked to maintain a friendly relationship so that we can support each other and continue to elevate the game of soccer in our community. We want to inspire these youth players to get excited and to see the opportunities available for the women's side of the game. SFCFC has committed to empowering women both on and off the field by not only providing them a high level of soccer training but also opportunities to be role models for the young girls in our community. Being involved in the community is part of our vision and we continue to look for opportunities to expand and improve in this area.

In addition to developing players, where does your club draw its players from? Local tryouts? College players?
Our coaches recruit players at the college level and find players who not only want to commit to soccer for the short season that we have, but that also fit our culture. Our roster of 25 consisted of 14 players from South Dakota with the rest being from Canada and central and southern US. The recruiting process has already started for next season as most collegiate programs are underway. As owners we made the decision to invest in tools that will assist our coaches in finding the players that best fit our clubs' goals. SFCFC will also have a local tryout in the winter for players that have not already been in contact with our coaches.

Do you have a rival or a favorite city for an away day? Who or where is that and why?
We played 4 of our games at our home stadium, Bob Young Field and the other 4 were travel games. With this being our inaugural season, we have only played each team in our conference one time. We look forward to next season when we meet back up with our opponents!

How did you finish this season - regardless of league position, did you meet your goals? What goals are you setting for next season?
We finished our season with a record of 4-3-1. We also received the award of best franchise in our conference.

But more than wins or awards, we are beyond proud of our organization that put this team together in a matter of months. We found that our responsibility to our community is bigger than putting a team on the pitch. We are investing in the women that choose to play for our club. We are investing in our community by bringing a preprofessional women's sport that fans can support and lift up as their own. Our goals for next season are to continue to improve on and expand the success of our first season.

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