Pontiac

Club Invitational Tournament brings cross-continental sport to Michigan

By Chris Jackett
C & G Staff Writer

PONTIAC — Soccer fans from around the Midwest are expected to gather at the Silverdome this weekend for a meeting of some of the most popular club teams from south of the border.

Taking the pitch at the Silverdome Feb. 4 and 6 will be River Plate from Argentina, UNAM Pumas from Mexico, and Ferencvarosi Futbol Club and Vasas FC from Hungary. There will be two games to kick off the Club Invitational Tournament Saturday, and the winners will face off for the first Club Invitational Championship Monday evening after the losers compete in a third-place game.

“We actually want to make metro Detroit a premier place for international soccer in the United States,” said Pius Oleh, AmeriSoccer USA president and one of 17 U.S. match agents for FIFA, the international governing body for soccer. “Metro Detroit is a soccer hotbed, and we want to make it No. 1.

“These are name-brand teams. They don’t have one (big) star like (Barcelona’s) Lionel Messi. These teams are popular. They’re the two biggest teams in Hungary.”

AmeriSoccer USA spokesperson Bruce Babiarz said the event has garnered a lot of response from the Hispanic community.

“Very, very positive. There’s a lot of excitement about having professional soccer matches in Detroit,” Babiarz said. “This is a whole different level of play we’re going to bring to metro Detroit. They’re all similar class and should make for some very exciting games.”

Oleh said promoting the event by inviting high school teams to watch private practices Friday and having 16 youth teams play 10-minute games during the four halftimes has helped to get the community involved and interested.

“We’re working with a lot of teams,” Oleh said. “We want our tournament to be one of the places where people say they discovered this player.”

The Silverdome hosted AC Milan of Italy and Panathinaikos of Greece Aug. 6, 2010, and Oleh, who also helped organize that event, said this weekend’s Club Invitational Championship should bring out even more fans.

“I think it’s going to be huge, even better. We have a lot of grass-roots,” Oleh said. “We have new turf at the facility. I think it’s going to be huge, economic-wise. We have people coming from Canada, Cleveland, (etc.). We have a lot of people coming. It’s going to be a family friendly event.”

A pair of Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football matches June 7, 2011, at Detroit’s Ford Field between the U.S. and Canadian national teams, and Panama’s and Guadeloupe’s national teams, drew an increasing number of soccer fanatics to that event, leading Oleh to believe what some have said for the past 10-15 years: Detroit is ready for a Major League Soccer franchise.

“I think we’re actually ripe for MLS because we have a lot of fans,” Oleh said. “It’s expensive now. Not like how it used to be. I think MLS would do well.”

In addition to hosting the international matches and featuring midgame youth contests, Oleh’s AmeriSoccer USA has sponsored several local youth tournaments since 2010, including the Novi Jaguar Invitational, the Canton Cup, the Wolverine Cup, the VardarStars Cup, the Grand Rapids Crew Cup, the Border Star Cup and the Bloomfield area-based Force Cup.

“As teams play in youth tournaments, they get exposed to other people and scouts,” Oleh said.

Babiarz and Oleh said their goal is to host international tournaments at the Silverdome or Ford Field a few times per year.

“This is the world sport,” Babiarz said. “We think of the Super Bowl as the end-all be-all,” but, globally, soccer is more popular, and the Super Bowl pales in comparison, he said. “If this goes well, we could conceivably hold another tournament in July 2012.”

Pumas and Vasas will start the tournament at 2 p.m. Feb. 4, followed by River Plate and Ferencvarosi at 6 p.m. The winners will battle for the CIT championship at 8 p.m. Feb. 6, after a 6 p.m. consolation game for the teams that lost Saturday.

Tickets cost $30 per day or $50 for both days, a value of $12.50 per game for those planning to attend all four matches. Single-game tickets are not available, but group discounts are. Visit www.silverdomevents.com or call (248) 338-2500 for tickets or more information.

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Chris Jackett at cjackett@candgnews.com or at (586)279-1110.