Detroit Metro Football Club joins Detroit sports scene

BRIGHTON — The sports landscape in Southeast Michigan has added a new team to the mix after a successful inaugural season from the Detroit Metro Football Club.

DMFC is in its first calendar year of existence and is already making a name for itself as a desirable destination for players, fans and sponsors. 

The club plays out of Legacy Center Sports Complex in Brighton and has received great feedback on the facility and the product of play.

DMFC plays in the United Premier Soccer League, which is in the fourth tier of the U.S. Soccer pyramid. The UPSL is the largest and most competitive pro-development league in North America with around 400 teams. The league is just one tier below professional soccer.

“We have a vision of assembling a roster to help players become professionals. … Some will become soccer professionals, and some will use our program to become professionals in all walks of life,” said Alex Lubyansky, general manager and head coach of DMFC. “We had one player go on trial at an MLS club, and another player just got signed professionally in Germany.”

The club’s official team website lists each player’s position on the field, and their occupation or field of study off the field. 

“We have built a roster with folks who have 9-to-5 (jobs) and are developing, and that’s been awesome,” Lubyansky said. “I’d say it’s unique to our club. We have this vision.”

The club’s support of players on and off the field is key. DMFC wants to be integrated in the community and make the game of soccer accessible to all.

“Our vision (is) to provide free soccer. There’s no youth component to this and there’s no pay-to-play component to this,” Lubyansky explained. “It’s to create opportunity. That was kind of our mission statement going into this thing.”

It’s also important to give the players as many opportunities as possible. The UPSL has spring and fall seasons every year, and DMFC participates in the U.S. Open Cup and the Merit Cup. Make no mistake about it: this organization wants to win, and it wants to win badly.

“We want to make the playoffs and make a deep run in the UPSL,” Lubyansky said. “It’s a very high level and it’s very competitive. … We want to compete, and we want to win.”

In DMFC’s first season this spring, the team ended with a 4-1-5 record and a +13 goal differential. That was good enough for a fifth-place finish in the UPSL Midwest East division. 

The team also hosted the Merit Cup, an event that allows anyone to try and beat the club for a $10,000 prize. In the first DMFC cup final, the team lost to a challenger.

Aside from a successful inaugural season on the pitch, the club also immediately established itself as a destination for players around the league thanks to its fanbase, facilities, and the way management treats its players.

“No one is doing it quite like we are in the league that we’re at,” said Jeff Tripoli, president of DMFC. “We’re going to create an atmosphere that attracts different talent. … Other players look around and say, ‘Wow.’”

That’s a crucial area of focus for Tripoli. He has lofty long-term goals for what the experience will be like at the DMFC.

“I envisioned something more around a campus, not necessarily a stadium,” Tripoli said. “A campus with significant training, open free soccer, and then from that, the best rise above, and we’ll give you a pathway to the team.”

Soccer is unique because it allows fans to watch their teams rise through the ranks. DMFC is in its inaugural year, but the long-term goal is in place, and the people that start supporting the team now can follow along for the ride.

“(The goal) is a moonshot, and that’s OK. It’s being the first non-MLS team in this century to win the U.S. Open Cup,” Lubyansky said. “In the modern era, no one has done it. That is our goal. To demonstrate that this model can actually put something competitively together that will produce the best team in U.S. Soccer.”

DMFC will release its fall schedule in the coming days. To learn more about the DMFC, visit detroitmetrofc.com, and follow detroit.metro.fc on Instagram.