August 4, 2010: Pre-Season is Upon Us!

It is hard to believe, but pre-season is upon us…and with that comes the roller-coaster ride that is known as college soccer! Ups and downs, twists and turns, forwards and backwards, corkscrews, and perhaps even a loop-d-loop or two…actually, let’s hope not…my motion sickness might get the best of me.

As coaches, we love to draw the analogy of a season being a marathon, but unfortunately, we are more set up as a sprint in college soccer. Two weeks of preparation, ten weeks of games and see if you survive the heartbeats, heartburns, heartaches, heartbreaks—and if you do, you reap the rewards that pull on the heartstrings…(that was poetic).

As you would imagine, we are quite excited to get things kicked off here next week as the guys report on Sunday and will be getting after it Monday morning. I am truly looking forward to the challenge that lies ahead here in West Philadelphia and the joy of working at Drexel University.

What an amazing summer it has been to get excited for the 2010 Drexel Men’s Soccer Season…World Cup games through June and July, as well as Philly Union games at the “Linc” and new PP&L park. I hope you enjoyed them as much as we did.

More exciting things lie ahead, including our yearly Alumni Day Festivities. Save the date: Saturday, October 2nd, 2010. We will host the reigning CAA Champions, UNC Wilmington, that afternoon for a 3 pm kick-off preceded by an afternoon of events:

Alumni Day Tentative Schedule:
11:00 am – registration/warm-up
11:30 am – Alumni Game (Vidas Field) until 1:00pm
1:00 pm – BBQ on Patio and Kopp Lounge
1:30 pm - Pre-game Analysis with Coach Hess in Kopp Lounge
3:00 pm – Kick-off v. UNC Wilmington


As I eagerly await the start of my time here at Drexel, thought I would send on the Q&A I recently did with our Associate Sports Information Director, Britt Faulstick. Some probing questions from my athletics knowledge disseminator, and poignant as well.

Enjoy the read (quite verbose again, I do apologize) and I will be in touch!

Regards,
Doug



What do you perceive to be the biggest challenge facing the team this season, as well as for yourself and staff being your first season in University City?

This is a tough question to answer, as there are going to be so many challenges this fall. We had a positive spring season and the returning players really got after it, but there are still so many transformations that need to happen within the culture of Drexel Men’s Soccer. The reality is that our returning players are still l earning who I am, who the staff is, and in turn, we are learning just as much about them.

I do believe one of the biggest challenges will lie in establishing a proper training environment. The returners learned a bit this past spring as to what the expectations will be, but we still have a way to go in establishing our daily habits. Training to me is the most important aspect of who we will be. It is the character developed on the training field that will establish the mentality of the team and hopefully, this will bleed into all areas of their life as a student-athlete here at Drexel University—in the classroom, community, and socially.

On top of this, we are adding a class of ten new student-athletes to the mix. When you talk about a roster of 28 players and have a turn-over of nearly 50 percent, this will be as big a challenge as any. We will be blending ten new personalities into our team and with that, the test of getting everyone on the same page becomes that much greater. Building a team and team mentality is a challenge, and one that I enjoy.

We took on a mantra of “embrace the struggle” this past spring and I believe we will grip this same thing through the fall. If we can take joy in the process of getting better, which entails both success and failure, I know we will be able to truly take steps in the right direction of establishing our program.

What words would you use to describe the style of play and attitude of the teams you coach?

Great question. I consider myself to be a relatively simple person, so the soccer must always start in the same fashion; simple is beautiful. Additionally, I want us to be organized. For the most part, this will show defensively. The team allowed way too many goals last season for my liking and organization will hopefully help in denying as many opportunities to our opponents.

I am a defending coach first. We must defend in order to attack if that makes sense. This being said, I love attacking soccer. I truly want my players to have freedom to make decisions in possession of the ball and make conscious decisions to play forward and make runs in advance of the ball whenever possible. While defending is a must, I know the game is solved when you score.

In terms of the attitude of the team, it comes down to the idea of trust. Trust is the key element to our success as a group. Without it, there can be no true commitment, nor be true relationship.

How do you view the race in the Colonial Athletic Association this coming fall?

If history has anything to say about it, I am sure it will be yet another tight and exciting race. The Colonial is a solid soccer conference that is typically ranked among the top 10 conferences year in and year out.

I have done the research, the top four or five teams are typically separated by six points or less…as you get into the 2-7 finishing spots, it gets even tighter! The regular season has been won by seven different teams over the last ten years as has the conference tournament. Last season, nearly 65 percent of the regular season games were decided by a goal or less. Needless to say there is parity in the Colonial and even more so, it is a grind.

I am familiar with several of the teams in the conference from playing them before arriving at Drexel. I have huge respect for the league and know it will be no easy task.

What sort of goals and expectations do you have for the Dragons this season?

To be honest, I am less concerned with the numbers game (wins, losses, etc.) and trying to focus more on what we need to do in order to establish the program. It is obvious that we want to win, why else would you compete if you didn’t have an expectation of winning. However, there are so many smaller details that go into winning that you just can’t simply say “I want to win” without properly preparing to win.

Speaking specifically to some of the numbers, we gave up far too many goals last season. You cannot have an expectation of winning if you are consistently conceding to your opponent. In the league, we gave more than three goals per game. With the quality of teams in this conference, that makes it extremely hard to compete.

On the other side of the ball, we found the back of the net just one time per game. There is nothing wrong with this, if your team is willing to do the work defensively and grind for the result.

I would really like to see our team bridge the gap in goals for and goals against. Obviously, we will be far more competitive inside the league and out if this happens.

With such a large incoming class (10 new players), how will this effect the team?

The group dynamic has been studied and thought through for years. No doubt if you can get all the people on the boat, rowing in the same direction, in the same rhythm you can dominate any field. Therein lies the challenge.

We have ten new players. Nearly 50 percent of our team will be going through this process of living away from home and acclimatizing to life as a college student all at once! It will be a test of patience for them, the returners, as well as a completely new coaching staff that will be learning the twists and turns of life at Drexel as we go.

The positive is that we have 10 new players. We will see where guys stand and whether or not they are ready. It is interesting to me to watch newcomers, for me they fall into one of three categories. They are either ready from day one, ready as the year progresses, or need time and seasoning before they can make their biggest impact.

So we have 10 guys that are totally new to it and ready to impact the environment they are coming into. It should be a fun thing to watch how we stretch and grow, succeed and fail throughout the season; all for the better.


Goalkeepers

We saw a rotation of three keepers last season, is that something you see happening again, or will one rise to take the starting job this year?

For me, the goalkeeper position has to be the most competitive on the team. I am not sure there has been a team that has won anything of consequence without quality goalkeeping. Only one plays and therefore, that one must be sharp. With three on the roster, I expect each of them to push and challenge one another throughout the year.

It is tough to say who will win the job this fall. Coach Robertson did a solid job this spring working with Tres and Tim, helping them in their development. It was clear that the two were close and either could start on any given day. Pentti will add a third to the mix and make this position extremely competitive.


Midfield

Do you anticipate Bafile to be back at 100 percent this season or is it going to take some time for him to get back to All-Conference form? How important is his leadership and experience this year?

Baf is extremely important to this team. He is going to be the lone captain and leaned on a fair amount by both the guys and the coaching staff. I know he is looking forward to getting this year back for the red-shirt and that he has worked extremely hard to get back to form. Baf is an everyday kind of guy, we know exactly what we will get each time we go out from him. He is a worker and we love that about him. That can be infectious to a group and we hope that it will be.

That being said, we will have a very large senior class, eight in total. We will rely on their leadership in bringing along all the new players and getting them adjusted to college life and soccer here at Drexel. On top of that, they have three years of college soccer playing experience. That is an extremely valuable resource. It is the last go for all of those guys and we will expect their best.

What is your midfield going to look like this season? What do you need to get out of this group of players in order for us to be successful?

Philosophically, I believe the midfield is where most games are won and lost. If you can control the possession and tempo of the game in the middle third of the field, more than likely you can control the outcome of the game.

We will look for the midfield to do most of the work in regaining possession and building attacks. Moreover, they will need to do their part in scoring goals as well. Furthermore, the more we can score from the midfield, the harder it will be to defend our team.

The entire midfield group will need to be some of the fitter players on our team, as well as some of the most tactically savvy considering their involvement on both sides of the ball. We have added some strong midfield players in Brandon Zeller, Manny Cazares and Brandon Zeller to an already strong group in Bafile, Cory Rohlfsen, Malcolm LeBourne, Nate Page and Andrew Stolle. The competition amongst this group will be strong.


Defense

Who do you see as your leaders on defense?

That is hard to say and I do not want to be premature in my assessment. There are so many new guys coming in and we have not had the opportunity to see them in our environment yet. Therefore, I believe this will happen over time this fall.

We had a lot of questions at the back this past spring and feel like some of the guys coming in will answer some of those questions. Additionally, the guys that are here (Ben Miller, Justin Johnson, Skylar Olson, Dan Vignola, Jon Volpatti) gained some valuable experience this past spring and will need to step up from the get-go.

What style of play would you like to see out of your defenders this season?

Building a proper back four is priority one for us. We want to build this program from the back forward. Therefore we need confident defenders that are competent both individually and collectively. Additionally, they will need to be adept passers of the ball so that they can start the attack for our team, as well as support it on the width.

We learned a bit this spring with how to defend zonally and got better through the process. I expect us to do the same through the fall.


Forwards

What do you see as the role for your forward / attacking players?

It is the job of the front group to score goals. This is their first responsibility and most important duty. It has been quite some time since we have had a 10-plus goal scorer for the Dragons, as a matter of fact, we have to go all the way back to ’94 when Phil Karn bagged 14.

This will be a challenge for us to develop a guy that can accomplish this task, but it is possible. I think a lot will fall on the shoulders of our returning guys in Andrew Goldberg, Eric Lynch, Nate Baker and Max Crockett. However, we will more than likely be a team that scores by committee and need to get as much support from our midfield as possible so that our front players don’t have to feel the pressure.

As I said earlier with our backline, I do not want to be impulsive in my judgment as to who will lead the team up front. It is far too early to tell. It will be imperative to the success of our team to share the burden of hard tasks and I am eager to see which guys will step up, it should be fun to watch.