I really have actual work to do today, but this was too important to ignore. Intrepid Redditor /u/howjadoo has been following the USL winter meetings in Orlando this week and somehow managed to notice this tweet from League 2’s St. Louis Lions:

If you zoom in there, under Great Lakes Conference you’ll see “Louisville City U23”.

CAVEAT: The club hasn’t announced that a U23 team even exists yet, and there’s literally zero that’s official about this tweet or the photo of the slide that was in this presentation. We don’t know where this came from. League 2 hasn’t made any announcements about it. I repeat: THIS IS NOT OFFICIAL IN ANY WAY. I haven’t reached out to LouCity about it because I’m not a real journalist, I’m busy, and I just have the keys to this website. IT MIGHT NOT BE REAL.

But if it is, that’s cool. It also makes me wonder a lot more about City’s youth setup. How does it work? Who’s coaching in it? Who are the players? How involved is Technical Director John Hackworth? Are there other teams than just the U23s? Where are they training? SO MANY QUESTIONS!

One thing that’s sure is that it’s good for Louisville City and good for soccer players in Louisville. There hasn’t been an intermediary between college soccer and the pro game here in town since the Rovers folded up about a year ago, and it’s wise for City to fill that space for its own purposes and to help foster better players in the Louisville and greater Kentuckiana area. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for more updates, if any, as they come.