Vermont Green Football Club, a pre-professional soccer team founded in 2022 by Matthew Wolff and Patrick Infurna, will open its 2026 season this May following a landmark year for the organization.
Created with the goal of establishing a grassroots soccer club rooted in Vermont, the team competes each summer at the University of Vermont’s (UVM) Virtue Field, where it regularly draws sellout crowds.
The club has quickly emerged as a force in USL League Two. In 2025, Vermont Green won the 144-team league championship and qualified for the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the oldest soccer tournament in the United States.
As a pre-professional team, Vermont Green’s roster is largely composed of Division I college players who compete during the summer to maintain and develop their skills. Several alumni have gone on to sign professional contracts in the United States, Canada and Europe.
From its inception, the club prioritized experienced leadership to guide its growth. Sporting director Adam Pfeifer, a former Boston College player and longtime college coach, has played a central role in recruiting talent through his extensive network.
As the club’s profile has grown, so has its ability to attract top players.
“We’ve been able to build our pedigree and convince top players that this is the place you want to go,” Infurna said in an interview with The Campus.
Two Middlebury students and members of the men’s varsity soccer team, Leon Brody ’28 and Will Sawin ’27, were members of Vermont Green’s roster for the 2025 season. Alex Elias ’08, the head coach of the Middlebury varsity soccer team, also served as an assistant coach at Vermont Green last season.
“It was an unreal experience playing with some of the best college players in the nation and in front of the best fans in USL2. All three owners, Pat, Sam, and Matt, are amazing, down-to-earth people with a deep passion for football, Vermont, and the club's social justice values. Between them, the coaching staff (led by Chris Taylor), the fans, and the players, Vermont has become a hotbed for American soccer,” Sawin said.
This summer, Vermont Green will employ five interns from the college to help facilitate the club’s home games and manage its sustainability commitments.
The club is especially proud of its sustainability mission, which is defined as one of the core values of the organization. In order to achieve their environmentally conscious goals, they source all their club apparel from British eco-friendly sportswear brand PlayerLayer; they also report their emissions through Science Based Targets initiative-backed tracking. On game days, the club organizers often take a half-time break to explain the club’s broader mission to the audience and promote partner organizations.
“Our values are aligned with those of Vermonters, and I think that’s been a big reason we’ve gotten so much support from the community,” Infurna said. “We want it to be as authentically Vermont as possible.”
Additionally, as the team is located in Burlington, it aims to root itself in Vermont through extensive partnerships with local businesses.
“People are coming up early, they’re getting the free Ben and Jerry’s, they’re speaking to the nonprofits, they’re getting local food vendors, and they’re making their way over to the stands and hopefully watching some good soccer,” Infurna shared.
Infurna, who grew up in Castleton, previously worked at Copa90, a British soccer media corporation. At Copa90, he worked on documentaries about soccer clubs around the world, aiming to showcase the passion for the sport in these communities. In one series, he helped cover the origin stories of globally recognized players such as Lionel Messi and Kevin De Bruyne by going to their hometowns and interviewing locals.
“We would go to Argentina and talk to Messi’s first-grade teacher,” Infurna said. “This was really great to get a sense of what it means to love this game, especially in off-the-beaten-path, small town stories.”
This experience later informed his decision-making process in crafting a club centered around Vermont and its people.
“We wanted to create a club (in Vermont) that means more,” Infurna said, drawing on his previous experience to envision the plan for Vermont Green.
Matthew Wolff, Vermont Green’s other cofounder, previously worked as a graphic designer for Nike. Wolff designed the club’s crest with sustainability and the natural environment in mind, aiming to capture the club's core ethos.
One of the main obstacles the club faces is the limitations of their infrastructure—currently playing at the University of Vermont’s (UVM) facilities, the venue’s 2,500-person capacity has proven to fall short of demand. Infurna spoke optimistically of future plans to build a new venue, complete with expanded training facilities.
“Hopefully some day, we can build a stadium somewhere around here. It could be a municipal project, or a collective one,” Infurna said. “Being in Vermont, we do have some limitations on venues—it’s harder to host big events here.”
The 2026 season will mark the first season for the Vermont Green FC women’s team, which will double the club's size and the number of games played. The season starts with an away game to Seacoast United, a team in Epping, New Hampshire, on May 16.
“With the World Cup in the U.S., this is an exciting time for the game both nationally and specifically in Vermont, which has shown massive interest. In my opinion, the sky is the limit for Vermont Green,” Infurna said.
