Athletica started the 2009 season playing its home games at Ralph Korte Stadium, on the campus of SIUE in Edwardsville, Illinois, then moved to Soccer Park in Fenton, Missouri, in June.

On May 27, 2010, the WPS announced that the club would fold effective immediately, forcing the league to compete with only 7 teams for the rest of the season.

[2] Team Chairman Jeff Cooper's organization SLSU had plans for a soccer-specific stadium ready, but the construction would not start until St. Louis had been also awarded an MLS franchise.

The solid play came from USWNT players Lori Chalupny, Hope Solo, and Tina Ellertson, and breakout scoring force English international Eniola Aluko.

Athletica only got to play one playoff game, though, as they lost to #4 seed Sky Blue FC, a team they had beaten in all three of their meetings during the regular season.

According to the official release on SLSU's website, The word "Athletica", while not found in the English dictionary, is derived from the adjective "athletic", with the "a" denoting the newly created noun as feminine, a common practice in many foreign languages ...

The word 'Athletica' denotes strength and power – characteristics of this organization that are epitomized by the crest, which also pays homage to St. Louis' roots", said Cooper.

While the general shape and design were retained, the color scheme changed to just green and two shades of grey, the fleur-de-lis's position was replaced by 2009 and two fleur-de-lises were placed on either side of the crest, and Saint Louis was replaced by a Joan of Arc figure on horseback as viewed from the right, holding a flag up instead of a sword, the sword instead being at her hip.

Newly included was an "StL" on the flag with a bar under the 't', and the banner was extended to say "Saint Louis Athletica" with 'Athletica' centered.

The official WPS press release lists Athletica's colors as "USA Forest Green" and "Pace Grey".

[citation needed] Athletica players will not have the option to wear the 'skorts' included in PUMA's kit design for games, along with the Red Stars and the Freedom.

After AB InBev gave the Fenton, Missouri stadium Anheuser-Busch Center, also known as "Soccer Park", to Cooper's organization in early 2009, rumors of Athletica moving there began to surface.

These were vindicated on May 21, when the Athletica front office sent out an e-mail to all season ticket holders notifying them of the move, to start with the June 7th game against Sky Blue FC.

In November 2008, well before the season started, a student at SIUE began organizing a supporter's group through websites like BigSoccer, Facebook, and MySpace.

River City Saints (RCS) was established in the summer of 2007 as a small collection of supporters for the St. Louis Lions organization.