When soccer website “Outside the Touch Lines” ranked FC Tucson No. 1 of all 67 PDL teams last week, the ambitious, get-things-done leadership of Tucson’s soccer organization didn’t go into an “aw shucks” mode.

Their vision of professional soccer in Tucson goes beyond the Premier Development League. It seems inevitable that FC Tucson will soon, perhaps by 2018, advance to the United Soccer League, and become an affiliate of a Major League Soccer team.

It would be the equivalent of a Class AAA Pacific Coast League baseball team in Tucson.

“We’re getting the pick of the litter nationally for our PDL team,” FC Tucson managing partner Greg Foster said last week, citing, among others, Jon Bakero, a former ACC Player of the Week at Wake Forest, and other top college players from Louisville, Creighton, Santa Clara and San Diego State.

“We believe the time is right for the Tucson market to move up to the USL.”