Giuseppe Gereau, freshman, has been playing soccer for St. Louis Scott Gallagher (SLSG) since he was in kindergarten and is on his way to making soccer his career.

“Soccer is important to me because I just love playing it,” Giuseppe said. “It’s just a competitive sport, and I’m a competitive person.”

This year he moved from the U-14 age group to the U-15 age group and now plays for the Academy U-15 boys team, the highest team for his age group at SLSG.

Giuseppe is planning to graduate a year early from MHS in order to train and play with St. Louis Football Club (STLFC), a soccer team that plays in the United Soccer League (USL). He plans to graduate as a junior in order to get  “taller and bigger” so he can play with the highest team at STLFC once he graduates.

Giuseppe said he has taken summer classes and is taking classes online in order to get all of his credits finished by junior year.

Kip Thompson, director of the boy’s side of SLSG, was the first person to approach Giuseppe about graduating early.

“He’s one of the ones that has always been good, always been identified as one of the better players,” Thompson said.

Thompson has been watching Giuseppe since he joined the club, and this past year, Thompson told him about playing for STLFC once out of high school.

“The soccer world is going so fast in terms of clubs are identifying players at very young ages trying to get them into pro programs and stuff like that,” Thompson said. “Part of that is education or no education and we have been trying to push players to speed up the process for high school so they can either go pro or get to college a little bit quicker.”

Thompson said Giuseppe has been approached for this opportunity because he’s “a great teammate” and “plays with a lot of smarts.” He said he’s also an optimistic and hard-working player who always shows up with a smile.

“I think for the young players in our club, he’s a great example of a teammate, a good person,” Thompson said.

Joe Gereau, Giuseppe’s dad, said that graduating early has always been the plan for Giuseppe, should he decide to take the opportunity.

“It’s kinda been the plan to give that opportunity to all the kids if they wanna choose it, but I 100 percent support the idea to get out early and give yourself options of either take some college classes at community college or potentially train with STLFC for a year before you go off to college,” Joe said.

Joe said that he could tell Giuseppe was athletic as a young baby, and that he noticed Giuseppe had a gift for soccer when Giuseppe was in first grade.

“I noticed he had a defensive mindset when it came to soccer,” Joe said. “He could read the fields and fall back already, and he was fast for his age.”

Lee Stooksberry is an agent for the German clubs that are attempting to get more players from the United States and he has approached Giuseppe about training in Germany.

“It’s easier than ever for the youth players here to be picked up by foreign clubs,” Stooksberry said. “They usually tell me whether they need a left defender or a number 9, things like that, and then I go and look for them.”