Well. It’s November, the sun sets at 4:30pm, and a young BC soccer team is once again on the outside looking in, having been knocked out in the first round of the ACC tournament. This year the Eagles finished with a record of 3-9-5 overall and 0-5-3 in conference play. For long-term fans of the Eagles, yes, that is marginally worse than last year’s record. And yes, the away game losing streak now stretches two years, with the away ACC winless streak stretching to seven. It, once again, was not the season that anyone wanted.
There’s a lot to unpack on a season that was supposed to be better and a team that started one senior consistently. But before looking at everything that went wrong, it’s important to remember the good too.
Four freshmen offer insight into possible solutions for the Eagles: Xavier O’Neil and Marcos Dos Santos terrorize opposing teams’ back lines with their dribbling, Jack Burkhardt has 360-degree passing vision, and Moritz Gundelach has the ability to learn in-game paired with a talent for consistent shot-blocking. Strong defensive tools, the ability to connect between lines, and a diverse attacking threat is exactly what the doctor ordered for BC. O’Neil was awarded an All-ACC Freshman Team honor. O’Neil, along with Dos Santos, Burkhardt, and Gundelach represent the Eagles’ best hope moving forward. Those four freshmen — regular starters all season — are the answer to BC’s woes.
For those readers who want (or need) to be a goldfish for next season, stop reading right here. Focus on the talent the Eagles have and the knowledge that the freshman class hasn’t even had a spring development yet. But for those trying to answer the “what went wrong” question, look no further than the rest of this article.
FINISHING
In an interview last year, Head Coach Bob Thompson mentioned that the Eagles wanted to be an attack-minded team. With another season under their belt and an admittedly young roster, BC finished last in the ACC in shots generated. Creating 157 shots in 17 matches, the Eagles ended their season at .706 goals per game, meaning that BC averaged less than a goal per game throughout the season. For comparison, every other team in the ACC finished the season averaging at least a goal per game.
To put it another way, the Eagles scored 12 goals all season. NC State, who finished just above the Eagles, scored 29. Virginia, the closest team to BC in terms of goals, scored 21. Notre Dame scored 39 on their way to winning the ACC regular season. Compared to last season, where the Eagles scored 22, this season is a significant downturn. Granted, last season Stefan Sigurdarson scored 12 of those 22 goals, meaning the rest of the team was responsible for producing only 10. No matter how one slices the data, the Eagles’ offense has been anemic for the past few years.
There was never going to be an immediate replacement for Sigurdarson. However, the Eagles could have opted to bring in a recruit with a similar style of play last year, allowing that recruit to familiarize himself with the BC system without the pressure of needing to immediately produce. Instead, the Eagles waited to recruit a replacement until this year, bringing in Daniel Klaric. Due to unfortunate circumstances, Klaric missed most of the season with an injury, but did tally his first goal against Duke in the Eagles’ ACC tournament game.
With Klaric missing up top, the Eagles were forced to improvise. Drew Serafino, a center forward by trade, played minutes in at the nine spot. But next on the depth chart was Simba Odhiambo, a freshman whose natural position is in defense. Jorge Dickens, a senior midfielder, also saw time up top as the season stretched on and the injuries shortened the Eagles bench. A notable statistic? Not one of Serafino, Dickens, and Odhiambo scored a goal this season.
At the risk of repeating the postmortem from last season, there was no tinkering with formation. The 3-2-4-1 remained consistent throughout the season, no matter which Eagles were injured or how dire the scoring situation looked. No matter the opponent, BC was going to stick to their scripted passing sequences. The first option was for the defense or midfield to loft a ball over the top for Augustine Boadi to then send in crosses, hoping for options in the box. On the other side, Ted Cargill would send balls through to Alfie Hughes who would dribble down the line or drift inside before passing down the line to O’Neil or Dos Santos who would cross the ball into the box.
Rinse, repeat, recycle the ball back to the defense and try one of those two options yet again. The hope was, of course, that eventually the sequence would work perfectly and lead to a goal. The reality was it rarely did. Instead the passing sequences made the attack predictable and left fans with an intense sense of malaise.
MENTALITY
Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room: the Eagles are a young team that starts just one senior regularly (and that’s Brennan Klein, their goalkeeper). With youth comes inexperience. College soccer is an adjustment, but can youth excuse the Eagles ending their season at the bottom of the ACC table? (If you are looking for a comparison, Duke paired a freshman with a grad student up top. The grad student had 14 goals, the freshman had 10.)
The youth question can be decided next year: either the Eagles improve or they don’t. But regardless of their potential, BC struggled with mentality this year. The opposition scoring a goal felt like the end of the game, or at least the end of the Eagles’ ability to win the game. This was not a team that opponents feared, nor was it a team that responded to challenges as a unit. Individual players had games where they dragged the team forward — such as when Christian Bejar decided that he wasn’t ready for the season to end at Duke — but there was no consistent team response or team fight in the face of adversity.
Instead, fans could observe Eagles players routinely yelling at each other to get back into the right position or hold their shape. When trying to advance up the field, players frequently were out of sync. Players made runs only for the ball to be passed backwards, or sometimes they passed into empty spaces because a winger hadn’t finished his run. Body language indicated the team wasn’t happy with themselves or with each other. ACC broadcasts would be speaking about the team culture instilled in the Eagles and the camera would be focused on a player yelling at another player or throwing their hands up in disbelief that a pass didn’t make it to their feet.
And while the Eagles finished eleventh out of twelve teams in fouls with 8.12 per game, they finished fifth in terms of yellow cards, averaging 2.35 per game. What that means is four different players sat out a game due to yellow card accumulation, including a player missing the ACC playoffs. The foul to yellow card ratio isn’t new, either, as the Eagles had the same problem last year, ironically also finishing with 40 yellows. The consistency signals a persistent mentality that hasn’t changed. Players argue with the referee, put their hands on their heads in disbelief, and otherwise signal their displeasure, instead of simply adjusting their play to the game the referee is calling.
The unfortunate reality of this season is that an inability to find the back of the net by the entire Eagles team led to increased mentality problems and frustration fouls. Instead of playing better than the sum of its parts, the Eagles play as disparate parts that occasionally function as a unit. The play on the left and right wings operate separately with distinct philosophies that do not interact. If the Eagles want to switch fields, the ball will be routed back through the defense, slowing the tempo of the game to a crawl. The intense lack of chemistry, especially in the middle of the field, means that BC has to rely on route options instead of creativity.
To put it bluntly: the Eagles are not a ‘never say die’ team, they are a ‘we’ll take the tie if we can get it’ team. BC will play up to opponents like Wake Forest, especially if the game is at Newton, but they’ll drop a match to Stonehill and follow up the best performance of the year (a 1-1 tie to Virginia) with a loss to Yale.
What’s missing? Consistency. There’s no punch back, no bite, no making teams pay for thinking a one goal lead is enough. Instead there’s tangible frustration humming around Newton Soccer Field. Maybe a spring development season will fix that. But likely they’ll have to put together a season above .500 in order for any major improvements to occur, making this a chicken and the egg situation. Fix the mentality or get more wins. The Eagles need both and there’s no clear way to accomplish that.
INJURIES
Compounding the Eagles’ inability to finish, BC also faced mounting injuries as the season wound down. Captain Diego Ochoa missed minutes in the middle of the season and at the end due to injury. Aidan Farwell, back from an ACL injury, ended his season against Virginia, although the injury had been nagging him since the start of the season. Previously mentioned, Klaric missed time in the middle of the season. Connor Gibson missed the end of the season and played limited minutes due to injury before he was shut down. Boadi, tied for leading goal scorer on the team, missed games in the middle of the season. Jonathan Murphy, the other leading goal scorer, missed the end of the season. Freshman Danny Istambouli never saw the field and will have to wait to make his collegiate debut next year.
Injuries aren’t unique to the Eagles. With essentially a two month season when teams play two games a week, injuries happen. But it is worth noting that this is the second (or even really the third) season in a row when the Eagles have faced a seemingly disproportionate number of serious and lingering injuries that have impacted their ability to compete. There’s no one overarching factor contributing to this. For example, the Eagles play on turf but also only traveled for six of their seventeen total games. It’s simply worth noting that at the end of the season, consistently, the Eagles are playing with a depleted roster, forcing those starters who can play to play longer without rest.
SO WHAT?
The reality is this season was a joyless slog because nothing changed game-to-game. There were moments of incredible skill (Hughes and O’Neil can dance with the ball, Burkhardt feels passes rather than seeing them, and Klein can see three seconds into the future to stop shots), but those were isolated moments. Nothing in this postmortem is new: not the yellow card total, not the questions about mentality, not the finishing. A team that ended the season with four wins last year ended with three this year, playing in the same formation and with the same mentality, struggling with the same issues. BC’s play might not be consistent, but their record is.
The hope is that the freshman develop. The hope is that Klaric, or someone else on the roster, can become a five if not ten goal scorer. The hope is that the Eagles break through. The hope is that the key pieces stay and don’t transfer. The hope is that next season is different. The hope is that next year the Eagles and their fans find joy in the game. The hope is that the Eagles become innovative, or at least efficient. The hope is in something changing. But the hope, as we know, is also what kills you.
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