Soccer team featuring local talent to compete at Malone University

Local soccer fans clamoring for more high stakes tournament action beyond the World Cup are in luck this weekend. They won't have to travel far to see the match either.

>Ambassadors FC Ohio will host the Michigan Rangers FC at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 18, at Malone University in a National Premier Soccer League quarterfinal. The winner of the match advances to the NPSL semifinals on July 25.

>Ambassadors FC Ohio is in just its second season competing in the NPSL.

>“This is an opportunity for Canton, Akron, Cleveland and the entire Northeast Ohio soccer community to rally behind a local team of almost exclusively local talent competing on the national stage,” said Bob Dean, Director of Men’s Football Operations for Ambassadors FC Ohio, in a press release. “Our players have earned the right to bring this match home, and we would love to see King Field filled with people who want to experience meaningful, high-level summer soccer in their own backyard.”

>The roster features several names area fans may recognize, including Amir Spratt (Mount Union), Diego Pinto (St. Vincent-St. Mary), Zach Zemanski (Stow), Asher Heart (Mount Union), Dylan Metz (Malone), Kostas Paxos (Hoover), Logan Scherer (Malone), Omar Najjarr (Mount Union), Reese Utter (Mount Union) and Colton Fry (Malone).

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>Ambassadors FC Ohio advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating Flower City Union 2-1 to win the club’s first NPSL Great Lakes Conference championship. Zemanski and Pinto scored in the second half to secure the title. Flower City Union won the 2023 National Independent Soccer Association professional championship.

>Earlier tournament wins came against Cleveland SC (its predecessor AFC Cleveland won the 2016 NPSL national title) and Erie Commodores FC (six-time conference champion, three-time regional champ).

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>Pinto was named the NPSL Great Lakes Conference Most Valuable Player this season. He also was the NPSL National Player of the Month in June after scoring nine goals. Spratt won the NPSL Great Lakes Conference MVP in 2025 when the club finished as the conference tournament runner-up.

>Tickets on Saturday cost $16.25 for general admission, $11.25 for youth general admission (17-and-under), $11.25 for senior general admission (65-and-older) and there's a $46 Drive In pass, which includes up to four adult general admission tickets when arriving in the same car.

>The club is also partnered with the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank and will be giving a half-price discount on any cash ticket sales to the match Saturday if people purchasing tickets in cash at the venue bring a canned good/non-perishable food item to donate. The club already gives $1 of every ticket sold to the Foodbank.

>Ambassadors FC Ohio is a pre-professional team from Ambassadors Football. The program is an international Christian ministry established in England in 1990. The team conducts youth camps, community programs and ministry initiatives throughout Northeast Ohio. It is a non-profit organization.

>Reach Cliff at cliff.hickman@cantonrep.com

>On X: @chickmanREP

>This article originally appeared on The Repository: Soccer team featuring local talent to compete at Malone University