Last week the Dearborn Press & Guide asked me to photograph the Michigan men’s soccer team’s NCAA tournament game against Central Florida.  Specifically, the P&G asked me to photograph two of the players, Dearborn natives Hamoody and Soony Saad.

This was my first-ever Michigan soccer game, so unsurprisingly, this was also my first-ever visit to Michigan’s gorgeous new soccer stadium and my first experience with the highly entertaining student section, the Michigan Ultras.

Yes, they’re as crazy as they look: like any good self-respecting soccer crowd, they made noise the entire game.  It made for a great game atmosphere.

The pregame:

The game:

A few minutes into the game, Soony crumpled to the ground in pain after contact with an opponent:

But a few minutes later he recovered and was able to play the rest of the game.

The game went into overtime with the teams tied at 1; halfway through the first overtime, Hamoody took a free kick that was deflected into the goal to win the game.  Obviously, both he and the student section were excited.

Soony was pretty thrilled, too.

The brothers (and the rest of the team) gave out autographs to some excited young fans.