Vermont Green Football Club’s 2023 season was, in a word, bittersweet.
The Burlington-based, semi-professional soccer team won 13 of its 17 matches, several of them by emphatic five- or six-goal margins. In just its second season, the club drew an average of more than 2,200 fans to its home games at the University of Vermont.
But as the season came to a close in mid-July, the team fell just short of a key goal: to qualify for its league playoffs and duplicate or even surpass its breakout postseason run in 2022.
“It felt a bit agonizing, right?” recalled Patrick Infurna, one of the club’s co-founders. “It felt a bit unfair to not get into the playoffs with how well we performed on the field.”
By any other measure, Infurna said he sees 2023 as a “massive success.” And this month, the club — which also focuses on promoting social and environmental justice causes in the state — is seeing recognition for its efforts on a national stage.
On Dec. 12, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced that Vermont Green had qualified for the opening round of the country’s oldest national soccer tournament and among its most preeminent, the U.S. Open Cup. The tournament kicks off in March at stadiums across the country with competitors ranging from small teams, like Vermont’s, to those in Major League Soccer, America’s top-tier league.
And earlier in December, Vermont Green’s league — called USL League Two — named the club its organization of the year for 2023. In a press release, the league pointed to Vermont Green’s 10-3-1 in-league record this season as well as its “commitment to reducing carbon emissions” and overarching goal of becoming a net-zero organization.
USL League Two, which is made up of semi-professional and developmental teams in the U.S. and Canada, also said that Vermont Green games had the second-highest average attendance of all of its 122 teams. Vermont competes primarily in the league’s Northeast Division, which includes eight other teams spanning New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and parts of New York state.
“We’re delighted that League Two has been the platform for The Green to educate and inspire people across the globe toward environmental justice, all while delivering exciting soccer to their fans,” said Joel Nash, senior vice president of youth and pre-professional properties for United Soccer League, or USL, in the release.
Vermont Green qualified for the U.S. Open Cup on account of its 10-3-1 record, according to Infurna. That tally wasn’t quite good enough to finish first or second in the team’s division and, thus, qualify for the playoffs. But it did position the club high enough in USL national rankings to be eligible for a tournament slot, Infurna said.
Making the U.S. Open Cup has been a goal for Infurna since the team was founded, he said, adding that the coaches and players are excited by the prospect of playing against a larger professional team should they make it out of the competition’s first round.
Vermont Green expects to play another semi-professional team on March 19, 20 or 21, though the details of the game haven’t been set yet. The regular USL League Two season takes place during the summer, from early May to mid-July.
Most of Vermont Green’s players are college students who also play soccer at their schools during the academic year. And since Vermont Green is a part-time gig, many aspire to be drafted onto a professional soccer team, Infurna said.
One of the club’s measures of success, then, is how many of its players make the jump to the professional level. So far six players have done so, Infurna said — and he expects more will before the end of the year.
“It really takes a strong community to want to come out and support semi-professional, one-season-out-of-the-year soccer,” Infurna said. “For me, it’s a testament to what this place is and how great the soccer culture here is. And we’re happy to be a part of it.”