DEARBORN — When it comes to most sports teams, the only thing on their mind is winning as many games as possible.

But ask just about anybody on the Dearborn Stars Michigan Premier Soccer League team what their main goal is for the upcoming season, and odds are they’ll tell you it’s to rally support from the local community.

The Stars will take the field on Sunday, May 4th against the Ford Lightning for their first match since 2000, and as was the case back then, expectations are high for the team, which is sponsored by the Lebanese American Heritage Club in Dearborn. The Stars have a rich history, as they were founded in 1982 and won the league title in 1996 before traveling to Lebanon to play against professional teams that season.

Of course, most of the players know that the best way to get the community to support them is to win games, and according to the players at the team’s kick-off banquet, that shouldn’t be much of a problem this year.

Just about every player on the team has been a winning soccer player at some level, and many of the players have played in professional leagues in Lebanon before coming over to the United States and making their homes in Dearborn. The team member with the most impressive resume just might be head coach Abbas Aboukh, however, as he was a member of the Lebanese National Club and played on the Lebanese Cup-winning Bourjh professional soccer club.

Aboukh will have his work cut out for him with this group as many of the players will be playing together for the first time and the other teams in MPSL have all been together for much longer.  But it’s a task he looks forward to because of how much talent the Stars can put on field.

“We have one strategy,” said Aboukh, “to play as a team and make sure that all players are the same. All 12 players are the Dearborn Stars.”

If Aboukh can get them to play as a team, the Stars could have as good a chance to win the MPSL as anyone. The Stars’ players don’t get paid for their efforts, but that doesn’t mean they’re taking things easy. Many of them spent the off-season playing in indoor soccer leagues in Canton and Wixom. Now that the season is about to start, Stars players practice three times a week for more than two and a half hours on top of managing their family lives at home and their jobs. Soon, they’ll play one or two games a week on top of that.

“Hopefully, our play will reflect our hard work ethic and represent the community,” said captain and forward Mouine Salame. “We want to show everyone that we do support soccer in this community and to come out and show that we have talent.”

Salame is excited for the season to start and is also extremely optimistic about the team’s chances, but he acknowledges there will be some challenges along the way.

“Other teams have the advantage of having played together for a while,” he said. “But we have professional players who have been MVPs in other leagues.”

Teammate Hassainain Shamas believes that the Stars’  biggest challenge will be getting into game shape for the coming season.

“Conditioning is our biggest thing right now, but it’s a work in progress and we’re getting better,” he said.

Once the Stars get into game shape, the task will be to play together as a team like their coach said and to get acclimated to each other’s styles on the field. But while the group as a whole hasn’t played together as much as other teams, many players on the team are good friends and have practiced together to learn each other’s tendencies.

Coach Aboukh also has seen most of them play in various leagues from Michigan as well as Lebanon, and he knows their strengths and weaknesses so well that molding them into a cohesive unit will be much easier than if he had walked in blind.

Salame thinks that Aboukh is the right man for the job and once the Stars starting meshing with each other on the field, there’s no telling what they can accomplish in the 2008 MPSL season.

“Our goal is to hopefully present the trophy to the Lebanese American Heritage Club to thank them for their support,” he said of the group, which is now more determined that ever to make the team a success.

“The talent level is pretty high and if we keep the same players we have now, the sky’s the limit.”