Matt Poland isn’t one to hesitate. He walked right up to Roberto Moreno, co-owner of the new pro soccer club in Naples, Florida, and put out his hand. “I said to him: I’m a soccer coach from the area and we should have a conversation. I think I can help.”
One conversation in January turned into many, and more often. The spark and hunger Poland possessed became as clear as a South Florida sunrise to the shot-callers of FC Naples and, five months later, he was hired as head coach and sporting director of the brand new USL League One (Div. III) pro side.
“It’s great not having to shovel the field before training,” said the 33-year-old Poland, about both the obvious differences in the weather from his previous post up north and the overall reality-change from the world of amateur soccer, where he made a name for himself with Chicago House AC, and the professional game. “Here we are building something from scratch.”
Anyone who’s had anything to do with Poland in the last few years, and long before that when he was just a player growing up in southwest Florida, knew he was destined for bigger stages. He’s serious about his work. He’s a builder by nature, having played in Scandinavia after college and embarking on a lower-league coaching jaunt in Finland in and around the Covid Era of 2020 to 2022. His competence and passion for the game are fully on display at all times.
“It’s no secret that he’s going places,” was the assessment Peter Wilt gave of his coach, barely into his 30s, in 2023. It was the year Chicago House AC stormed through to the Third Round of the Open Cup with a win over pro side Forward Madison and booked a date with local top-tier MLS outfit the Chicago Fire. “Here I am working for the first GM to give [former USMNT coach] Bob Bradley a head coaching job,” was Poland’s memory of his first interaction with Wilt, iconoclastic builder of grassroots soccer in this country and former President and GM of the Fire, where he won four Open Cups and one MLS title.
That 2023 Open Cup run with the Wilt-run Chicago House is instructive for a few reasons. They needed to suffer through four rounds of grueling travel, a shootout with the floodlights out in Brockton, Massachusetts, to even reach the Tournament Proper via the amateur Qualifying Rounds. Once there, they had to gut it out to progress against teams with more money and bigger profiles. It was precisely those kinds of experiences that gave Poland his enduring love of the Open Cup, where he finds himself once again in the Third Round with this first-year and high-flying FC Naples.
“It’s this beautiful, chaotic, unpredictable, amazing, wonderful and totally stressful thing,” Poland has said about the historic tournament, now in its 110th edition. “In the Open Cup you never know what’s going to happen, but you do know that it’s something and it’s probably going to be weird. You come to appreciate the stress of it, the predictability of the unpredictable.”
It’s not just mentality and poetry with Poland. He’s got one of those tactical brains you can almost see working all the time. The first player he signed in his new job in Florida was Jayden Onen. Poland took a mental note of “the major problems he caused” when his Chicago House ground out the win in the 2023 Open Cup against Onen’s Forward Madison.
Poland also brought in Jake Dengler, a long-time veteran of the lower leagues and a hero of the Open Cup during his time with USL League One Cinderellas South Georgia Tormenta. With the rest of his squad selections, Poland has skewed “intentionally young.”
The new coach’s start to life in Naples – and FC Naples start to life as a soccer club – couldn’t be going better. Undefeated in league play (as of the publishing of this story) the club is through to the Third Round of the Open Cup. It may be Poland’s second time up in this rare air, but it’s come to pass from the uncomfortable position of being the favorite instead of the underdog.
“In some ways it’s easier when you’re coming from the position of the underdog in the Open Cup,” laughed Poland, who brought his former Chicago House goalkeeper Tony Halterman in as his goalkeeper coach, third-string roster option and ready-made team leader in Naples. “You go out there completely free because you have literally nothing to lose.”
In this year’s First Round, as favorites and the sanctioned pro team against amateur neighbors Sarasota Paradise, Poland was being chased and hounded by a possible Cupset for the first time in his career. The game needed three goals in the last 12 minutes – including a dramatic 91st-minute winner from Kevin O’Connor – to settle it 2-1 FC Naples’ way. Two weeks later, on April 2, FCN were favorites again and this time the game went as the script hinted before kick-off – Onen scoring 24 second into an eventual 3-0 victory against USL League Two side Little Rock Rangers.
Poland and FC Naples’ reward for those two wins is a return to the role of underdog in his beloved Open Cup, which fits him like a hand in glove. When the Tampa Bay Rowdies travel to the Paradise Coast Sports Complex on April 16 (a game broadcast LIVE on Paramount+ and CBS Sports Golazo Network), FC Naples – flying high in their new world of the third professional tier – will be the outsiders against one of the oldest pro soccer clubs in this country’s history. And one from the Division II pro ranks.
Whereas Poland and his Chicago House AC side had a concrete us-against-the-world, blue collar ethos to lean on when they went hunting their Cupsets, FC Naples are building something from scratch. And Poland, a coach as honest and open about the challenges as he is effusive about the positives, seems to be hitting the right notes when it comes to building an identity.
He uses the words suffer and culture a lot. They’re guiding principles for him.
“We’re a first-year team, so everything is a first,” he said of running a team in Naples, a popular destination for northern Snowbirds without the set and defined cultural touchstones of, say, a City like Chicago with a miles-deep sporting culture. “And building a culture sounds easy to some people, but really the process takes a lot more time and effort than most people think.”
FC Naples and the larger Naples community are both growing at the same time and in the same direction. “At this lower professional level, it’s not just about having the best soccer team in the standings, it’s about growing together as a community and developing an identity and something we can all be a part of and share in,” Poland said about bringing pro soccer to this part of the world he calls home – and where got his start in the game.
There’s a lot Poland and his team can’t control when it comes to the larger forces, but on the field and in the locker room is where the work of building can really take root. With a chance to knock off a USL Championship power in the Third Round of the Open Cup – and in so doing, book a date with a club from Major League Soccer (MLS) in the Round of 32 – he has an Open Cup Dream worth entertaining.
“Everything isn’t going to be perfect. On the field, off the field, we’re figuring it all out as we go,” said Poland, in the kind of statement that wouldn’t be out of place with his former amateur outfit from Chicago. “Travel delays, three-hour bus rides, trouble with hotel rooms, whatever – you’re going to suffer. What’s important is that we suffer together.
“How do we do in those times, on the field and off, when we suffer together? Poland asked, rhetorically with an eager edge to his voice. “Going through things together is what makes you grow as a team. You have to make sure you get that right. That’s how you build and how you can really become something.”
Fontela is editor-in-chief of ussoccer.com/us-open-cup. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.