Men's Soccer Looks To Rebound Against Friars

A pair of opening weekend losses for the Harvard men’s soccer team (0-2-0) has done nothing to shake the confidence of the team heading into its Thursday game against Providence (3-0-1). Following a weekend in which the Crimson equaled its opponents in shots on goal at 14 apiece but came away with four fewer goals, senior midfielder Ross Friedman said that the team showed the potential for a potent offense in the losses.

“I think our shot count says that we created chances, and I thought that we were very dangerous [last weekend],” Friedman said. “I can see each game being completely different games if we had capitalized early. [On Thursday], it is going to be very small changes to our game plan and focus that are going to be the difference maker.”

Three years ago, the last time that the Crimson played the Friars, Harvard fell, 2-1, at Soldiers Field after two first-half goals put the Crimson in a hole they could not overcome. However, nearly none of the current Harvard team was on the field that day; only current seniors Friedman, Connor McCarthy, and Obiajulu Agha saw playing time against Providence.

This time around, Friedman said that the team will focus on the small parts of the game that make the difference between winning and losing. In both weekend games—a 3-0 Friday loss to Iona and a 2-1 Sunday loss to Davidson—late goals clinched the victory for the opposing teams.

Against Iona, with Harvard committing more and more men up the field to pursue an equalizing goal in the 79th minute, Iona midfielder Ignacio Magnato caught a through ball ahead of a scrambling defense and doubled the deficit with a rocket into the back of the net. A third Iona goal 90 seconds later put the game away. In Sunday’s game, the Crimson took an early second-half lead but gave up a second goal late. To correct these late lapses, Friedman said the team has focused on playing ninety solid minutes of soccer.

“A lot of the stuff happening at the end of the Davidson game was that we stopped talking because we got tired and our focus slowed,” Friedman said. “Finishing through the line and willing your way to win the game are big things. That was the difference maker last weekend.”

With the team beset by injuries early in the year—most notably senior midfielder Kyle Henderson being out for the year with a concussion—Friedman said that the freshmen class has stepped in and contributed immediately to the team. According to the senior, in their first games of their careers, rookies like forward Ashi Geberkidane, who scored the team’s only goal on Sunday, have played like seasoned veterans.

“I was very impressed to see how calm and composed they were in their first games,” Friedman said. “In a situation like that—where it is [both] a higher level game and more physical playing against guys three or four years older than them, how they focused and implemented their process to the game was impressive.”

Sophomore midfielder Michael Klain said that the new system of coach Pieter Lehrer has smoothed the transition for the younger players on the team. Klain said that the focus on the system and not the individual parts allows players to seamlessly transition in and out, as evidenced by the 18 different players who received playing time over the weekend.

“It is unfortunate that we have injury troubles, but we have a system where the focus is less on individuals and more on how we put the product together on the field,” Klain said. “As long as the individuals with less experience can focus on doing their part and not replacing anyone and on their role within the greater system, the task becomes easier for those guys.”

Within the system, Klain said that the game Thursday will serve as another benchmark for the team. Both he and Friedman emphasized that the process of improvement is very important to the team and that the final score is only one indicator of the team’s performance.

“We had two good opportunities [last week] to take step forwards and we think that we are a better team now than we were on Friday,” Klain said. “Those are a few of our strengths that we can apply tomorrow and we [can use] to get better every single day.”

“For us, everything is all about the process,” Friedman added. “Throughout the game, we are constantly thinking about our process, and [then] from that we begin to think about results.”

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