CRUZ CONTROL: Plenty Still On Tap For Soccer

Empires, as they say, are fragile human creations that wither in the face of inevitability. The treacherous deceit of invincibility, which allows said empires a brief illusion of immortality, only leads to ruin when weaknesses in an empire become palpable pillars of harsh reality.

For the Harvard men’s soccer team, it’s budding Ivy League empire, and simultaneously, its quest to become the first back-to-back Ivy champions since 1970 may have come to an end this past weekend.

Just as young emperor Romulus Augustus met a sudden and abrupt deposal at the hands of Odoacer to mark the beginning of Ancient Rome’s epic collapse, so too did the Crimson meet a cruel fate, falling to the curiously acrobatic Brown Bears 3-2 in overtime.

Unlike the fated Romans however, Harvard has an opportunity to quickly reemerge from its anguished state, to revive itself as a more permanent, respectable fixture in the collegiate soccer landscape.

And how, you may ask, can the Crimson reclaim glory after its potentially disastrous stumble against Brown? I’ve got an acronym for you, and it’s only four letters long: NCAA.

While failing to capture the Ivy League crown this year can rightfully be viewed as a regrettable misfortune, it is ultimately just an inferior goal to the true evaluation of this season: how far can the team go in the NCAA tournament?

As aficionados of all Harvard athletics, it is common for us to equate success in the big-time sports (big-time by NCAA standards) by Ivy League performance.

Our football team has no Division I-AA postseason regardless of how well it does, and our basketball team, even if it did capture the Ivy League title, wouldn’t be expected to make it past the first round of March Madness.

Soccer, however, is a different beast altogether. The future of the program rests not on Ivy League dominance, but rather on how well it does on a national stage.

Top-caliber recruits and respect from national pundits won’t come simply by beating upon New Havenites and suburban-dwelling Jersey Tigers. It will come from beating the likes of UCLA, UC Santa Clara, Wake Forest, and SMU, perpetual national powerhouses of the soccer scene.

The only way to consistently play such competition and garner enough prestige to attract top athletes is by playing (and beating) those aforementioned teams in the NCAAs.

Success in the NCAA tournament can also spell dividends for our current players. Sal Zizzo, the former UCLA Bruin who torched our beloved Crimson last year en route to the national title game, played his way straight into the U-20 National Team and professional German club Hannover 96 by dominating the tournament.

And fortunately, Ivy League domination is not a prerequisite towards achieving success in the NCAAs. The 1971 Harvard team had a blemish on its Ivy League resume and failed to win the title, but marched on to an appearance in the NCAA semifinals.

That team, which featured Shep Messing ’73 (who would later parlay his Crimson success to a fortuitous career as Pele’s teammate with the New York Cosmos) as goalkeeper and stud forward Felix Adedeji ’74 (who still holds the all-time records for goals in a season at 18) is eerily reminiscent of the current Crimson squad, which also features a stud forward and a top-shelf goalie.

How did that team find success in the NCAAs? By virtue of its sole Ivy League loss.

The earlier than expected loss caused the team had to readjust its attitude, correct its flaws, and play at a higher tempo to silence its critics.

Luckily for the 2007 squad, Brown may have done it an enormous favor. Brown exposed Harvard’s flaws by imposing its physicality to neutralize the Crimson’s speed and dribbling prowess and causing havoc off set pieces.

Unfortunately for the rest of the Ivy League, I am sure Coach Kerr and his staff in practice will meticulously correct these flaws in time for the team’s next slate of games.

Last year, Harvard marched through its Ivy League schedule unscathed, riding high off a prolific offense and a misleading regular season campaign.

By not having a worthy adversary during its regular season, Harvard was unsurprisingly shell shocked when it traveled to southern California to play UCLA in the second round of the NCAAs.

The Bruins ran the Crimson off the pitch, and while Harvard displayed enough talent to merit its presence on the field, the team was simply overwhelmed at the ease in which UCLA eviscerated its vaunted attack. Harvard hadn’t played an opponent of UCLA’s caliber and thus hadn’t needed to change its playing style until the sun set in southern Cal and the Crimson’s 2006 season.

The sun still shines (albeit with a smidgen of cloud cover) on the 2007 campaign, and Harvard now has the tools at its disposal to make a serious run at the NCAA tournament. Now, I’m not suggesting that Harvard completely forget about its Ivy League pursuits, as it would be imprudent to give up a potential trophy that’s still well within reach. Nevertheless, the Crimson mustn’t view its season with despair if an Ivy League title isn’t in the cards. The NCAA provides a plethora of riches far more valuable than anything offered up by another Ivy League crown.

Although Augustus’ end signified the end of an empire and the onset of the Middle Ages, Harvard’s weekend collapse may ultimately mark not the end of an empire, but the beginning of a flourishing dynasty.

—Staff writer Mauricio A. Cruz can be reached at cruz2@fas.harvard.edu.