Independence Park, on Denton road in the suburb of Canton, is an unlikely place for a soccer camp for kids, given the sport’s relative unpopularity in Michigan – and the United States for that matter.

In addition, the Detroit Ignition, an indoor soccer team that’s part of the Major Indoor Soccer League, runs the camp, despite the difference between indoor soccer and the classic, outdoor variety being taught to kids by Ignition players.

Ignition newcomer Vahid Assadpour, a midfielder. explained the difference right after the day’s instruction ended; there is no out-of-bounds – the games take place in hockey arenas – every goal is worth two points, not one and like basketball, there’s a three-point shot.

“I guess that’s what brings the American crowds to the games,” Assadpour said.

Vahid Assadpour is as unlikely a professional athlete as the World Cup would be replacing the Superbowl as the ultimate adolescent male sports fantasy. Born in Ahvaz, Iran, in 1984, Assadpour is one of only a probable handful of Iranian professional athletes in the United States, given the clichéd Iranian doctor/lawyer model of achievement. But it wasn’t indoor soccer fame he was after; after graduating from the University of Detroit-Mercy with a double major in criminal justice and addiction studies (“but maybe one day a lawyer,” he said) he sought his athletic fortune in Europe.

“I came here for a soccer scholarship, and then I was gonna go back home and try to go to Europe,” he said. “But I got picked up in the draft for the Indoor League, so then I’m like, why not, let me give it a try.”

Home for Assadpour is Toronto, Canada, where his family settled in the mid-eighties to escape the war then going on between Iran and Iraq, when Saddam Hussein was an American ally and over a million people lost their lives on both sides.

The middle class life the Assadpour clan was used to in Iran was replaced by the uncertainty of immigrant life in Scarborough, one of the roughest neighborhoods in Toronto. From there, they became the Jeffersons and the family moved on up into Richmond Hill, 25 minutes outside the city.

Assadpour’s Detroit experience was preceded by his own father’s study in Detroit, and it was a soccer scholarship that brought the young man to UDM in 2003. He was drafted into a young team that was formally announced on April 19, 2006 and began the 2006-07 season later in the year, according to the team’s Media Guide.

“During its inaugural season the Ignition posted a league-best 18-12 regular season record and advanced to the MISL Championship Series Finals,” according to the guide. For a little-known sport, “the club sold-out 13 of 17 games played at their home arena, Compuware Arena,” located in Plymouth.

The team saw all 16 home games sold out, while defender Droo Callahan was named to the All-MISL first team, and forward Jamar Beasley and goalkeeper Danny Waltman named to the All-MISL second team, according to the media kit. Despite this success, repeated throughout the league that stretches down to Monterrey, Mexico, the MISL has been disbanded and is undergoing a restructuring that will see it re-emerge with a new name.

After finishing his first season, Assadpour is confident about his teammates and his coach Bob Lilley and is looking forward to the next season, but he had his sights set on Europe, where he tried out for a Swedish FIFA team. Despite not getting the position, he’s still in the process of getting into a European club and is also considering Major League Soccer, which got a boost when British soccer icon David Beckham signed on with L.A. Galaxy.

As for the Ignition, his goal (no pun intended) is simple.

“Next year we’ll win the championship,” he said.

For more information visit www.detroitignition.com.