Utah State men’s soccer to face club powers BYU and Weber State
It’s gut-check time for the Utah State University men’s soccer club.
Fresh off of back-to-back wins over Salt Lake Community College, the Aggies were rewarded with weekend games against club powerhouses BYU and Weber State University.
USU will travel to Ogden to play the Wildcats Friday at 5:30 p.m., before taking the field against the Cougars Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Provo.
“Playing Weber and BYU, I think that’s going to be extremely tough,” said USU Head Coach Carlos Coirolo. “It’s going to be big.”
Big might be an understatement when the Aggies face the Cougars. If ever the word dynasty could be given to a club soccer team, BYU fits the bill. The Cougars have won five of the last six club national championships, including last season’s 16-1 squad.
“They’ll always be good,” said Aggie team captain James Barnard. “They always take the title. You play against them and you think we could have beat them, but they always end up winning.”
Although Coirolo said he heard the Cougars are not as strong as they have been the last couple of years, he still expects BYU to be the team to beat come nationals.
“I think they are [the favorites],” he said. “People keep telling me they’re not as good as they were last year, but I think they’re really good.”
Despite the daunting task of playing BYU on the road, Barnard said he feels “fairly confident that we can beat them.” After all, the Aggies played the Cougars tough in Provo last season as they dropped a 1-0 game despite playing a man down for more than half the game.
In order for USU to give itself a chance in Saturday’s game, Coirolo said the Aggies must negate BYU’s team speed by compressing the middle of the field. To accomplish this, the Aggies plan on using five midfielders, he said.
“I think we’re going to try to crowd the midfield, play with five midfielders at least for the first couple of minutes,” he said. “[From what] I know, everything starts at the midfield for them.”
In addition to playing an undefeated BYU team, Utah State will have the challenge of playing two undefeated teams this weekend.
Consistently among the top club teams in the country, Weber State has yet to lose a game this season. However, Coirolo said the Wildcats closest game was their 1-0 victory against the Aggies Sept. 7 in Logan.
In that game, both Coirolo and Barnard said they felt USU outplayed WSU. The Aggies failed to capitalize on three solid scoring chances in a first half Coirolo said was “the best 25 minutes we’ve played all year long.”
“We had plenty of opportunities to score, we just didn’t finish,” Barnard said.
Being able to finish when the opportunity presents itself is a must when facing the Wildcats, Coirolo said.
“I think mainly what we didn’t do here [in Logan] was execute close to the penalty area,” he said. “We have to execute because they don’t give you many chances.”
One thing the Aggies have on their side is momentum. After dropping two tight games the week before, USU rebounded by sweeping SLCC last weekend. The Aggies defeated the Bruins 3-1 Friday in Salt Lake City, and completed the sweep with a 2-1 come-from-behind victory Saturday at Tower Field.
“The guys really, really played well,” Coirolo said. “They executed well. We started strong and finished strong.”
– jasonwturner@cc.usu.edu