Some recent soccer news in Rochester, Minnesota has generated excitement. Rochester Football Club’s (FC) acquisition of Med City FC marks a pivotal moment, enhancing the regional soccer landscape and offering a clearer developmental pathway for players. This strategic move consolidates top-tier soccer within a unified club, promising heightened opportunities for talent growth. In a prior episode of the Growing Destinations podcast, the visionary founders of Rochester FC, Muharem Dedic (Mo) and Midhat Mujic (Mido), shared their inspiring journeys from Bosnia to Rochester and explored the strategic reasoning behind their partnership with the United Soccer League.
Rochester FC
Experience Rochester, MN
Some recent soccer news in Rochester, Minnesota has generated excitement. Rochester Football Club’s (FC) acquisition of Med City FC marks a pivotal moment, enhancing the regional soccer landscape and offering a clearer developmental pathway for players. This strategic move consolidates top-tier soccer within a unified club, promising heightened opportunities for talent growth. In a prior episode of the Growing Destinations podcast, the visionary founders of Rochester FC, Muharem Dedic (Mo) and Midhat Mujic (Mido), shared their inspiring journeys from Bosnia to Rochester and explored the strategic reasoning behind their partnership with the United Soccer League.
Rochester FC
Experience Rochester, MN
The Growing Destinations podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Learn more about Minnesota's third largest city, which is home to Mayo Clinic and features wonderful recreational and entertainment opportunities, by visiting experiencerochestermncom.
Speaker 2:Joining the US cell was a goal of ours, and we've always had our eyes on this. For, for the reason that we want our youth to have the opportunities that we did not have right, we want our youth to have a goal of being able to play pre-professional soccer as they're out of high school, as they're in college, so then they're already getting exposed to this high level of soccer and professional coaches that could recruit them to that pro level.
Speaker 3:I know the youth level. It's going to take us a little while, but we're not giving up. We just want to show the Rochester surrounding areas that there is potential here, there are opportunities here and we're not going to run away. We're only going to grow, and for the benefit of all of us. Rochester is an awesome town. I think it needs something like this, you know, especially on the women's side of the del. We added the women's side. That came out of nowhere. Actually, it was not planned, but it happened and we are so happy about it.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast, where we take a deep dive into destination development and focus on a wide range of topics, from tourism and entertainment to economic development and entrepreneurism and much more. I'm your host, bill Von Bank. Some recent soccer news in Rochester, minnesota, has generated excitement. Rochester FC's acquisition of Med City FC marks a pivotal moment, enhancing the regional soccer landscape and offering a clear developmental pathway for players. This strategic move consolidates top tier soccer within a unified club, promising heightened opportunities for talent growth. In a prior episode of the Growing Destinations podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with the visionary founders of Rochester FC. We delved into their inspiring journeys from Bosnia to Rochester and explored the strategic reasoning behind their partnership with the United Soccer League. Mithat Moyic, muharam Deidich. Welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:So, mithat, I believe you go by Mido, correct? So in this interview we will call you Mido and Muharam Mo. You both emigrated from Bosnia to the United States more than 20 years ago. Tell us about that journey, mo. Let's start with you.
Speaker 3:Sure Back. I don't know if you're familiar, but not with where we come from. We had a nasty war in the 90s and then we got displaced, chased out from our country. We went as refugees to Germany for five years. We never really settled. We moved around so throughout Europe.
Speaker 1:To Germany.
Speaker 3:We mainly stayed in Germany and the war stopped and then my dad decided to go back because he was homesick. And then we went back for a year or two and after the war it was it wasn't a right choice to do, but we did and luckily he had family, he had his brother here In Rochester, minnesota, actually in Texas. So to the family. We established a connection to the embassy and then they brought us over here and that's how we actually landed in Rochester. When was that September 9th 1999.
Speaker 1:Mido, same question for you what brought you to the United States?
Speaker 2:The same situation for us. We didn't go to Germany or anywhere. Actually, our family just bounced around in Bosnia. We lost our home during the war.
Speaker 3:There was nowhere for us to go.
Speaker 2:So my family decided to take a chance and come to the States. My dad had a cousin in the area we were coming to Rochester as a fantastic place for a family and growing a family. In education and Mayo being one of the best hospitals, it was a good place to start a family.
Speaker 1:How old were both of you when you came here?
Speaker 3:I was 18.
Speaker 2:I was 10.
Speaker 1:You really grew up in Rochester.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:As you settled in Rochester and went to school here, tell us a little bit about growing up in Rochester and the activities you did. I know you're big soccer players so I believe you played quite a bit and still do soccer, mido.
Speaker 2:When we came here I had no knowledge about soccer and no knowledge about the area. We spoke no English. We learned it through watching TV and stuff. So I really didn't get involved in new sports until middle school about, I think, eighth grade and that was because one of my teachers at that time saw me playing outside with some kids and he noticed that I had a talent. And then he reached out to one of the coaches and from that point I played for the U-System. That's how my soccer kind of started.
Speaker 1:How about you? You were older when you came here.
Speaker 3:I was eight years older but my whole soccer life started back in Germany as a refugee. As kids we were just in a refugee camp. We spent five years I mean it was just a ball street and nothing else really and school of course, but we struggled. We struggled with the language. So people helped us a lot there and through school I started playing. And Europe is a little different. The whole set up around soccer and stuff. They have scouts through the schools, through the whole whole system and one of the guys approached me and he saw a little talent in me and then brought me to a super, super top academy level or club and that's how everything started.
Speaker 1:When you came to Rochester and you were 18 years old, did you know any English? A?
Speaker 3:little bit actually. I actually first six months. I ended up in an ESL class at Century High School and that was it for me.
Speaker 1:You both fell in love with soccer and you played throughout your career. Tell us a little bit about that part of your lives early on, post high school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for me I played for Mayo High School it's tough to get college recruiting in the area. A lot of the you know if you want to play college you have to reach out to colleges to kind of recruit you right. So initially I didn't even consider it. I was approached by St Olaf, but then I decided to go to Hamlin University In.
Speaker 1:St Paul.
Speaker 2:Yes, yep, because we had a friend that actually went up there before and he's like hey, you should go to this college because it's really good. So I ended up there for a year. I didn't like the city life, so I ended up at St Mary's University in Winona and I graduated from there and right after that I ended up playing for some NPSL teams. Then I went over for Finland and Sweden for a little bit and then I came back when I played for Minnesota United. I think it was in 2018.
Speaker 2:And then after that, I think we had our kids, so I decided to call it on the travel back and forth all the time, and that's when Met City started, or in the area.
Speaker 1:So I ended up playing for them we'll have more play catch up, and then we're gonna talk about how you to became business partners you know, as I brought it up earlier, soccer was my life, to be honest.
Speaker 3:You know, I had five awesome years in germany. I was ready and fit, maybe to become a pro actually, and then my decide, my dad, as I said, decided to move back. It was tough for me, you know, because at that age, either make it or not, I was sixteen. I went back and I played actually in my hometown for first team with sixteen I was the youngest captain ever actually send me actually a book. I was All star ever, you know, with sixteen I mean suppressive I was ready.
Speaker 3:I was ready for four top level. And then, you know again, my dad decided to move to the US and brought us over here and then I was actually involved through the years in rochester, starting right away. You know, I was hungry for soccer. You thought this might be it here. You know, maybe a chance, but my, I had two biggest injuries that can happen to a soccer player.
Speaker 3:I was eighteen and nineteen, so with eighteen, a c l and meniscus With nineteen, the left a c l. So my, my, both needs when out Bad injuries, you know, try to recover. And I played for the p d l team in town and that was actually a wing of minnesota thunder back in the days. I was there for a year and I played through a s l minnesota amateur soccer league top. They had four divisions. That was a the division division one, so I played there. And then I was involved with the basnick community club in town here for many, many years. So I run that club For many years. Even me. That was part of that. Many grew up and he was older.
Speaker 1:Well, you've both settled in rochester, you both have young families and careers, and in two thousand eighteen you became co owners Of the rochester football club. Football meaning soccer what motivated you to start rochester fc.
Speaker 2:When I play for med city, we had quite a few of local guys. The opportunity for them to play kind of went away. Second year, I think there was a transition in coaching and staff and For me it was important to showcase local talents and I wanted the opportunity to give players in the area the opportunity to play at a high level. And I did research and we found out that the ups l was a was an opportunity for us. I've known more for a long, long time and we played, you know, with the basnick club and with his background and Talent and business knowledge he was kind of the perfect partner for this. So we had a meeting and I think it was Behind this house, next to his pool. We sat down in chairs and I was like I bought a couple papers. I was like moe, I was like what do you think about this? And then Started talking. Like well, he wanted to push on the youth academy because of the development and they can expand on it back again going to germany.
Speaker 3:I was the happiest kid and I saw how Club itself functioned, from the youth up all the way up to the first team, and my dream was always to to have a Something close to it. You know where you, where we as a club or as a club owners, where we can work on with local, local kids to give him opportunities to grow up being Good person first, and then you know athletes a second, and I always wanted to push that and me. There was just the right choice, I guess, and we decided to go ahead with the UPSL.
Speaker 1:Who do you serve with the club?
Speaker 2:so the U-Sides are. It's actually the toughest to kind of Grow. So we've been. We've been working on it since, you know, 2018 and initially for us it was just, you know, recruiting kids on our own, kids who have never played soccer, you know, due to financial reasons or just never, you know, family was just not supportive enough for them to do that. So we did a lot of personal recruiting back then and we found Amazing kids and we started a team, you know, with just the boys side. I believe at that time it was 14 year olds, 14 through 16 and then through the couple years, we focused on them and Just last year we ended up having two girls teams, 15 through 18 years of age, and then this year we also have boys U-13 and U-11 team. So we're growing slowly, but it's it's hard to recruit kids, I think, because there's, they're playing with their friends and they're not Looking to move at the moment.
Speaker 1:This past summer, you made a significant announcement that greatly impacts Rochester's standing in the soccer community. Rochester FC is the newest club to join the United Soccer League USL Pre-professional leagues, with both the USLW women's league and the men's USL League too. What are the benefits to Southeast Minnesota of bringing this level of soccer to Rochester? It's a high level soccer.
Speaker 2:It's, it's very high, it's it's the highest pre-professional you know league in the nation. It's a. It's a top, top league, well-respected league. For us it was important to take the step because of our past experiences with, you know, personally, not being recruited by Colleges, not being able to have an opportunity to go to that next level. Right, joining the USL was Was a goal of ours and we've always had our eyes on this. For, for the reason that we want our youth to have the opportunities that we did not have, right, we want our youth to have, have a goal of being able to play Pre-professional soccer as they're out of high school, as they're in college, so then they're already getting exposed to this high level of soccer and Professional coaches that could recruit them to that pro level, and that's something that we did not have. So for us, you know, that was important greater development for youth mo.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You know, those are the reasons actually why we added both themes on top. Just for the youth who have a goal. They should have ladders, climbing the ladders. The highest should have been a pre professional, maybe professional in a year or two after they joined the pre professionals. So those are the option. I mean, those are the, the things that we provide actually in town, here and surrounding areas. And I know the youth level is gonna take us a little while but we're not giving up. You know. We just want to show the, the Rochester surrounding areas, that there is potential here. You know there are opportunities here, you know, and we're not gonna run away, we're only gonna grow, and for the benefit of all of us. So Rochester is an awesome town. I think it needs it. It needs something like this. You know, special on the woman's side, that we added a woman's side. That was that came out of nowhere. Actually, it was not planned but it happened and we are so happy about it.
Speaker 1:We'll give us the backstory on bringing us a leagues to Rochester. How easy of a decision was it and how long did it take.
Speaker 2:For us it was. It was an easy decision to make due to the professional level there it's at and how it's, how it's run by the league, how it's organized, the support you get from it. So it was an easy decision. Financially. We did have some, you know, back and forth because it is a financially, you know it's a huge commitment from from us, but it was. It was a perfect move, you know, and at the right time for us.
Speaker 1:I want to spend some time focusing on the women's club, because the USLW is new and the Twin Cities, minneapolis, st Paul, had an incredible debut with the Minnesota Aurora in its inaugural season this past year, going all the way to the championship final but unfortunately losing out. But what a year. Average home game attendance for the Aurora totaled more than 5,500 fans. They will now be a competitor for you. Give us your perspective on this phenomenal season for the Twin Cities Minnesota, you know, benefiting from that and and, and how that can be a springboard for for your new league.
Speaker 3:All sports are played because of fans. You know they're surviving because of fans. Looking at these numbers, I mean you tell me you won't find a kid around here that's not willing to go out there and play in front of 5,000, 6,000 fans. That's our goal too, but not now. Soccer is being played because of the fans. And looking at these numbers, these numbers are phenomenal. Reading and looking on social media of course we research teams that we're going to play. We are so excited to face them. I mean it's unbelievable, and especially for a local kid to go out there and play in front of so many people. I mean that's a dream come true.
Speaker 1:Mino, how about you give us some perspective?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm with Mohan the fans. It's a different atmosphere, not even that many, but if you played in front of a good crowd, it's different for the players. So for us they're well organized. They've done well this past year, internally and on the field. Off the field. I just saw that they actually got their mascot, which is a huge congratulations to them. That's a huge step For us. We want to replicate and hopefully we can outdo them, but that's a goal for us.
Speaker 1:That's a positive sign to see so much energy in the inaugural season for the USLW.
Speaker 2:I mean women's side is growing, men's side is growing and for them to have 6,000 fans on average per game, that's huge. That just shows the support there is for soccer, for women's soccer, Amazing.
Speaker 1:You mentioned earlier. This is a big investment, financial, of course, and people. How will you measure its success?
Speaker 3:By attendance. To be honest, as I just talked, it's all about the fans. You have fans in, you'll have better marketing, better things. In general, it looks better. You can sell more to businesses by going and saying hey, look our games. They are attended by so many thousands of people. It's easier for marketing part as well. It's the tendance that clubs to buy by and marketing, of course, but you won't get that. You know they both have to click to be successful.
Speaker 1:I was at the press conference when you announced this big opportunity for Southeast Minnesota. A lot of media in attendance, and you also unveiled a new crest. Tell us about the new logo that I'm right now staring at as we're talking.
Speaker 2:When we had our other logo, we wanted to build a logo around the city of Rochester, the community, and you know that's where the loon came in. You know the, the state Bert, we had roster football club on there, the year was started in 2018 and then you know they had the cityscape, I think, on there for Rochester. So you know, moving into the USLE, we we wanted to modernize that a little bit. So we we created the logo. We had a professional designer there out of England do that work for us and they did a fantastic job. So the modern loon is it's in the center. We've got Rochester FC up top and then Minnesota, minnesota on the bottom, kind of representing the state, the city, and then the loon. We also had a Minnesota for a specific, specific reason.
Speaker 2:It's kind of Interesting because roster football club there's a few roster football clubs out there Australia, new York, multiple areas and I've gotten multiple phone calls from Rochester, new York hey, when is your game this Friday? We don't have a game this Friday, right? So the including the Minnesota part will kind of hopefully eliminate that, not to get confusion. So in the loon, you know you've got the the eyes. So instead of the eye, with the yellow star to kind of give a shout out to us as owners and as Bosnian owners to the Bosnia flag, which is you know, they've got this yellow stars.
Speaker 1:It's a great-looking logo, by the way. Thank you, thank you, thanks. How do you bring the community along with you as you build this new club?
Speaker 2:for us. You know the work that we've done. You know reaching out to businesses, reaching out to schools, reaching out to Everybody is to kind of make them aware that roster football club is here and we're here for the long term. We're not here for a year or two, it's gonna decades and decades and hopefully when Me and Mo move on, there's definitely roster football club is still around. So we want to expose the club to the city and we think, as more as more mentioned, by Bringing an attendance. And you know, bring in entertainment.
Speaker 2:Soccer is entertainment. If it's done right, people will come out, enjoy the game, they'll support the players on the field, which we're hoping a lot of them are gonna be local athletes. So by having that, and then on that top of that, our city is gonna benefit because Anybody that's a sponsor roster football football club they sponsor, they sponsor the club, but they also sponsor the youth. That gives us an opportunity to give scholarships to all the youth in the area. So that's how we get our funds to give scholarships to youth who can't afford it.
Speaker 2:And then on top of that, they get the advertising during games. So they get banners, they get flyers, they get brochures. So when fans come out. I think everybody benefits because the business is benefit by the advertising. Now people know who this business is. That business is the fans. The community benefits because now they're seeing our local athletes competing on a top pre-professional level against Minnesota, aurora or Chicago or Springfield. And Then the youth benefit because they get the support from the community and they're able to play the sport they love in front of Family and friends in the area.
Speaker 1:Meadow and Moe. It's been a great to have this conversation with you. It's fun to hear about this new enterprise and how you're building it in real time. Congratulations on your most recent success with the announcement of your affiliation with usl, and best of luck.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. Growing destinations Thanks for having us.
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