Since arriving in Arizona a little less than a year ago, veteran Phoenix Rising FC defender Peter Ramage has seen up close the changes that have come to soccer in the Phoenix market.

“It’s been chalk and cheese, both on and off the field, to what it was when I first came here,” the former Premier League defender said. “We’ve got an unbelievable complex, obviously where we play and are training, it’s exciting to be a part of it. To have seen it from the start to what we’ve got now, it’s exciting. … The ownership have been working their socks off to make sure they give us every opportunity to be successful on the field as well as off it.”

The concept of what is now growing in Phoenix was presented to Ramage by the duo of the club’s former Head Coach Frank Yallop and his Assistant Marc Bircham. The way that the club has evolved since the purchase of the club late last season, through the rebrand to Rising FC and the establishment of an ingenious home venue has capture the imagination of the local community, with packed crowds filling the Phoenix Rising Soccer Complex throughout the first half of the 2017 USL regular season.

The team itself, which underwent a pretty good makeover of its own in the offseason, is also putting itself in position to be a contender in the 2017 USL Cup Playoffs. Entering Saturday night’s road game with Tulsa Roughnecks FC at ONEOK Field (8:30 p.m. ET | Match Center), Phoenix is on a six-game undefeated streak, and is level on points with the eighth-place Roughnecks. The additions of the likes of Omar Bravo and Didier Drogba to the squad have made a major difference, of course, but Ramage also gives plenty of credit to new Head Coach Patrice Carteron.