It may be known more for its hockey than its soccer, but the Detroit area – and Michigan at large – have produced their share of notable MLS figures.
Longtime US international Alexi Lalas hails from the area, as do San Jose Earthquakes midfielder Fatai Alashe, Columbus Crew SC winger Justin Meram and Real Salt Lake head coach Jeff Cassar. The latter two were particularly excited to hear Tuesday’s news that Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert are partnering to potentially bring MLS to the Motor City, both telling MLSsoccer.com that they were thrilled at the prospect of top-flight professional soccer returning to Detroit.
“I’m really excited, excited for the city, for the state,” said Cassar, who grew up just west of Detroit in Livonia, Michigan. “Obviously Michigan has been hit with some hard times, but I care so much about my hometown, that’s where my mom and dad and brother and sister still live, and I think having an MLS team in Detroit would really bring the community together. It would bring constituencies together and I think it’d be a wonderful thing for the state and the city.”
Meram was born and raised in Shelby Township, Michigan, about 30 miles north of the city. Unlike Cassar, who hasn’t lived in the area since he left to play college soccer at Florida International University in 1992, Meram was around for Detroit’s more recent soccer growth, playing for local youth power Vardar in the early- and mid-2000s before spending the last two years of his college career at the University of Michigan in 2009 and 2010.
Meram said he always wondered why Detroit didn’t attract MLS interest. He thinks Detroit’s downtown revitalization efforts, large multicultural population (the Detroit area is home to one of the largest Middle Eastern communities in the US; Meram’s parents were both born in Iraq) and embrace of fourth-tier club Detroit City FC make the city an “incredible” fit for MLS.
“You have all these communities that love playing the game, and now [potentially] bringing that team to Detroit is going to bring in all those fans and people that love the game,” he said. “I mean you see Detroit City at their level of semi-professional soccer and what they’re doing. If they’re bringing in that type of crowd, that type of an atmosphere, I can’t imagine what an MLS expansion team would do.”
As bullish as Meram is that Detroit would embrace MLS, he’s even more confident that a Detroit team would heighten MLS’s Midwestern rivalries. The Iraqi international said he doesn’t “really feel” Crew SC’s rivalry with Chicago, but that the addition of Detroit – whose pro teams have a long history of rivalries with Chicago teams and local colleges don’t have much love for Ohio – could give the league’s Midwestern corridor a Cascadia-like feel.
“I really think Detroit’s going to bring a true rivalry in the Midwest,” he said. “It could be like the Pacific Northwest with Vancouver, Portland and Seattle. I feel like Detroit’s going to be that team that really connects, say, Columbus, Chicago, Detroit and really starts that rivalry and really makes some derby matches.”
There’s likely still a long way to go before any decision is made on whether or not Detroit will join MLS. They have a deep-pocketed, well-connected ownership group in place and even revealed some stadium renderings on Wednesday, but they still need to acquire land for a stadium before they can even think about putting shovels in the ground.
If they’re awarded a team, a Detroit MLS club wouldn’t take the field until 2020 at the earliest, and possibly not until 2022. Regardless of how long it may take, the Detroit group will have two boosters in Meram and Cassar, who would love for their league to move into their hometown.
“When I think about Michigan fans and Michigan people in general, I think that they’re very loyal to their teams, very loyal to their state,” Cassar said. “They embrace what the state and cities are all about and I think MLS is something that the Michigan people would really rally around, really put their hearts into and really support.”
