KOCHVILLE TWP, MI - If you ask Detroit City FC super fan Jordan Smellie, there's no such thing as a "friendly match."

"There is no 'just a friendly match.' Detroit City is playing, so we're there. End of story," said Smellie, of Ferndale.

Detroit City FC, the semi-professional soccer team of Detroit, played the Saginaw Valley State University men's soccer team on Saturday afternoon to kick off its 2017 preseason. Detroit won the game, 3-1.

But it was the Detroit City FC fan section that really made their presence known at the game. Except they don't label themselves as fans.

"We don't refer to ourselves as fans, because we're not," Smellie said. "A fan is somebody who shows up if it's convenient, and it's cheap, and it fits into the schedule, and the team is winning. We show up, win or lose. Every single match."

It wasn't just the maroon and gold attire that made the City faithful stand out from the crowd. Rather, it was the loud chanting throughout the game, similar to how MLS fans or European soccer fans would do, that gave them the edge.

"There's always a group, depending on the distance," John Sarge, of Detroit, said about the fan section. "This is the first friendly, so it's fairly small. Go to Grand Rapids in June, you'll see three- to four-hundred people."

Sarge said that last year they were averaging around 5,000 fans a match at Keyworth Stadium in Detroit, where DCFC plays. Smellie said many fans specifically made an effort to make it out to Saginaw because of the fact that many SVSU players eventually end up on Le Rouge, the DCFC team nickname. Last season, nine players on DCFC's roster were from SVSU.

And for those like Smellie, distance is not an issue, anyway.

"We've been season ticket holders for years, we went to every single match that DCFC has played last year, home and away, whether in Michigan or Ohio or Indiana," Smellie said. "So driving an hour and a half from Detroit to Saginaw to see City play is nothing."

"We're not the only ones doing this," Smellie continued. "These are people who really, genuinely care about community first. We are not a Major League Soccer team, we're not second division, our players are not professionals ... The supporters are doing this because we love the sport, we love the community, we love the city and this is how we show it."

Even more than the love of the sport, it's the sense of community among DCFC faithful that makes them loyal to their team, and to each other.

"We have all kinds of different political preferences in our group. We have all kinds of different sexual identities, and gender identities, and races, and hometowns, and ages," Smellie said. "We have everything from toddlers to senior citizens, and they are all safe and welcome," he continued. "We have people who are natural born Americans, we have people who immigrated in the last six months. We have people who speak English, we have people who speak English as a second language ... The only thing we ask everybody to be the same in, is that you're all cheering for the same team. We don't care who you are or where you come from. As long as you support City, you're good."

Detroit City FC's home opener of the season is May 6 at Keyworth Stadium in Detroit against the Dayton Dynamo.