FC Naples has announced the man who will lead the team in its inaugural season. Matt Poland has been named the head coach of the USL's newest expansion team, which is coming together step-by-step. This announcement comes one month after the team's name, colors and crest were revealed.
"[I'm] absolutely just overwhelmed and excited with it and so thankful for the opportunity to coach in my hometown," said Poland, the head coach and sporting director of FC Naples.
"This is definitely a top moment, milestone moment for us," said FC Naples CEO Bob Moreno. "We were saying that our sporting site is being born. Matt is coming in now, and now the fun process starts with recruiting players and actually building the team that's going to be out on the field."
Poland comes to FC Naples with a plethora of experience on the pitch. Originally a Rochester, Minnesota native, Poland played soccer at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. His professional playing experience extends overseas in Finland. But for the past 13 years, Poland has called Southwest Florida home.
"I've had the privilege to coach all different teams while I've been down here in the offseason of wherever I'm coaching," said Poland. "I've coached U8 teams, the local teams, and I've coached at Marco Island Academy, the local charter school in Marco Island and also with Naples United.
Poland is coming back home to Florida to start FC Naples from the ground up.
"It's special to start a professional club anywhere just because of the foundation that you get to lay, but the privilege of doing it in my backyard is amazing," Poland added. "It's a responsibility I'm very thankful for and take very seriously."
"The process with Matt was very natural since day one," said Moreno. "His professionalism, his experience overseas, his experience playing is fantastic. And then, when you add the fact that it's his hometown, it just makes it a dream come true, honestly.
This is actually the second professional soccer team that Poland has started. In 2021, he was the assistant coach at Chicago House AC, taking over as head coach for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. In his time with Chicago, he recorded a record of 23-8-7 and took the team to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup tournament in back-to-back years.
"It's really focusing on making sure that you build the foundation right thinking long term, not taking shortcuts, and making sure that every decision being made on the sporting side is what's best for the community," said Poland. "You never want to do things to harm the community, and you want the club to represent the community. So that's the biggest kind of compass direction that we want to go with."
The next step in creating FC Naples is filling out the roster.
"We'll start with some open tryouts, and the early fall, want to find some local talent to be on the team to represent the team," said Poland. "We want talented players from anywhere in the world that are excited to come in here, learn, grow, develop and hopefully aspire to go even higher. And to me the biggest thing that we really want to make sure we're hitting from the soccer side is making sure we're finding not just good players, but good people.
"We're going to be very involved because we want the people being on this team and representing this team," said Moreno.
The inaugural season for FC Naples will begin in March 2025. Season ticket packages are on sale now.