Over the summer, Bruin blue and Trojan red blended together.
Though from rival schools, two of soccer’s most decorated collegiate players played in the same uniforms with both red and blue on them.
And white.
UCLA’s Lauren Cheney and USC’s Amy Rodriguez played under the watchful eye of UCLA coach Jill Ellis and together brought home the gold for the U.S. Olympic team.
“We don’t care about (the UCLA-USC rivalry),” Cheney told the Daily Bruin over the summer. “Obviously on the field, it’s completely different. We both want our teams to win. But off the field, we’re just really good friends,” Cheney said.
The friendship of two of collegiate women’s soccer’s biggest stars that continues despite the jerseys they wear encapsulates the relationship between USC and UCLA when it comes to women’s soccer.
When they’re on the field, the athletes play with an incredible intensity and a fearsome will to emerge victorious.
But in this “rivalry,” there is no hate. In fact, there are quite a few friendships.
“A lot of us have friends on their team,” senior midfielder Christina DiMartino said. “It’s just a fun rivalry. There’s no hate; there’s no bitterness. We just go out and have fun playing against them.”
Ellis has also formed her share of solid relationships through coaching.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to work with (USC players) Kristen Olsen and Megan Ohai and A-Rod (Rodriguez) this past summer with the Olympic team,” Ellis said. “That is a great thing about sport. You get to know people, and it’s a little disarming because now they are people you have a conversation with and ask how their family’s doing.
“There are a lot of friendships. A lot of these kids played club ball together. It’s just natural. We’re the two premiere soccer programs in Southern California, so the high level kids end up going here or there.”
But their deep respect for each other doesn’t mean that Friday’s battle of top-10 teams won’t be another classic.
“This is my 10th season, and I don’t think there has been one game against ‘SC that hasn’t been just a fantastic match,” Ellis said. “USC comes with the intensity and high level of play. I don’t think it’s ever been separated by more than one goal, and a lot of time it has finished in overtime. It just shows you as a gauge, that the rivalry is intense. It goes beyond the soccer game ““ it’s the school pride. I can’t honestly remember not a fantastic game against ‘SC.”
When the Bruins take on the Trojans in front of 3,000-plus fans at the Coliseum on Friday, it will be the two teams’ first matchup since the national semifinals at the College Cup last year.
A new chapter was added to the rivalry with USC’s 2-1 triumph over the Bruins. UCLA had won eight straight contests against the women of Troy prior to falling last December. With the win, USC moved one step closer to eventually becoming the first Pac-10 team to win a national championship.
Members of the team who played in last year’s game agree that UCLA played well in the first half of the semifinal but failed to play hard for a full 90 minutes. Perhaps as a result, USC converted on their chances when they got them, and UCLA did not.
“It was very disappointing,” sophomore defender Lauren Barnes said. “Being in the Final Four, we worked that hard, and it just slipped away.”
But Ellis said that the fact that USC was the opponent to knock them out of their fifth straight College Cup, didn’t make them feel any worse about the loss than they already did.
“If we hadn’t have played them last year, this game (Friday) would still be intense and important,” Ellis said. “I’ve been there five times, and we’ve been devastated five times. Last year wasn’t any harder because it’s ‘SC. It’s exceptionally hard, period.”
The team seems to agree: The result of last year’s game doesn’t actually make Friday’s match any bigger than it already is.
“So much of sport has to be moving forward, so for my players it will be about this game, not last year,” Ellis said. “Every year this is a huge game for us, so the fallout from last year I don’t think plays into it in the sense of making it a bigger game. It’s ‘SC, and it’s a Pac-10 game, so it’s huge.”