I didn’t expect to miss covering college soccer (yes, I have to call it that.) Such is the English snobbery felt towards pretty much any American version of the game that I am more or less supposed to actively turn my nose at the notion of the collegiate format. But after two years being around the Maryland men’s squad, it’s hard not to be even a little melancholic.
The good side of that, though, is that ideals of journalistic integrity are gently removed. That is, I can try to enjoy the football, and casually, just casually, exercise some kind of happiness when my alma mater wins.
And that’s exactly what happened Monday night, thanks to this goal from junior attacking midfielder Brayan Padilla:
Increasingly, college soccer has become an outlet, if not a springboard to MLS. 77 players were taken in the 2021 MLS SuperDraft, and although only a handful are playing in America’s highest tier, it’s certainly an opportunity to catch the eye of ever-watching scouts.
But it’s a flawed format of the game. The clock is the wrong way round (it actually counts backwards from 45 minutes.) There’s no added time. And you’re allowed unlimited substitutions — with some strange first half switching caveats. “Points” somehow show up as an individual statistic (total honesty, I covered the game for 2-plus years and still am not sure how a player can total 15 points in a season.)
The schedule is too packed, as well. This year, Maryland is tasked with playing 16 games over about 9 weeks. If the Terps happen to make a playoff run, it’ll be even more — approaching 25 if they are successful in both their conference and national tournaments.
That hefty fixture list might well impact the style of play. These are rigid contests. Teams are typically organized, not expressive. Well-oiled, not expansive. The Big Ten’s highest scoring squad last season, Penn State, for example, averaged a hair over 2 goals per game. The worst defensive unit in the division conceded a little more than 2 every contest. The biggest average margin of victory? 1.35 goals. When Maryland won the 2018 national championship, it did so on the strength of its back four, one that didn’t concede a single goal in the NCAA tournament.
It’s a too-often used musing from coaches in football that there are “no easy games” in any given division. But when you have to travel nearly 900 miles on a Thursday night to play in frigid Wisconsin against a team that will set up the most disciplined of 4-4-2s, that saying may well hold true.
Thus, teams often rely on moments of magic, splashes of brilliance, to win a game.
And if that means a 30 yard curler in a derby from a player 2 years removed from an ACL tear that could have ended his career, I’m not complaining.