Winless Men's Soccer Squad Remains Positive

Following an opening pair of losses in coach Pieter Lehrer’s debut weekend, the Harvard men’s soccer team (0-2) emphasized that the final scores did not tell the full story of the team’s play over the weekend. Junior midfielder Kevin Harrington said that although the team was outscored by four goals, continued improvement and positive takeaways are the focus for Harvard—not the final tallies.

Although Harvard converted only one scoring strike, it took just as many shots on goal (14) as their opponents over the weekend.

On Sunday, the team flashed its diverse offensive arsenal when it got shots on goal from eight different players. Similarly, despite giving up five goals, the team had two 65-minute stretches over the weekend where it held its opponents scoreless. By comparison, the team managed only two such stretches in its first six games in 2012.

“Despite the score lines, we did a lot of things right that we can go forward with and that will improve our confidence,” Harrington said. “We stuck to our gameplans well and the best thing you can see from the weekend is that we are progressing from Friday’s game to Sunday’s game. On Sunday, we did a lot more things right…and the argument can be made that we deserved to win that game. What we will take away is that we made another step forward and played a lot better.”

Over the weekend, Harrington said, the team’s main vulnerability was to the deep ball on the counterattack. Late in both games, with the Crimson pressing to tie or take the lead in the second half, Harvard was beat by deft through balls through the defense that caught the Crimson out of position.

“I think what has been happening in both games is that we have committed a lot of numbers forward chasing a goal,” Harrington said. “That left our defense line a bit susceptible and Iona had quick players able to take advantage of that, [so] that’s why they could put in those late goals against us when we got pushed too far up in position.”

The midfielder noted that in both cases the team was caught with too many men upfield, the team was playing a more risky strategy going for the win. In Sunday’s case, this strategy came at the expense of defensive tactics like playing safe for the tie.

“You have to commit numbers forward to increase your chances of scoring,” Harrington said. “Our attitude is that we are going for the win every time, even if [that means that] when you make one bad pass then they are coming back at you.”

—Staff writer David Freed can be reached at david.freed@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @CrimsonDPFreed.