Is it necessary to create a site collection of type "My Sites" to user the User profile service application (AD import)?

Question

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721052(v=office.15).aspx

Above URL --> Under before you begin section:

An application pool for My Sites exists.

We have a silt collection of "team sites template". Now, can we use User profile synchronization application (AD import)?

UPDATE

We got it working for a team site, and are able to programatically fetch the user profile property values too.