Nearly two years after falling to UC Santa Barbara in the 2006 NCAA championship game, the UCLA men’s soccer team will finally have a chance to redeem itself tonight at Drake Stadium.
It has been 668 days since the Bruins dropped the 2-1 contest in St. Louis, but they haven’t forgotten the outcome.
Senior midfielder Jason Leopoldo, who was a sophomore at the time and scored the Bruins’ lone goal that night, is well aware of what tonight’s game means for some of his teammates.
“Everyone that was part of the team in ’06 will definitely be playing with a chip on their shoulder,” Leopoldo said. “Like I said, you still don’t forget that they beat us in the final.”
Even though it is the same two schools, the circumstances are different this time around.
The Bruins (2-3-3) began their season losing three of their first five games, but have played well as of late. They will be looking to keep their three-game unbeaten streak alive.
UCSB (5-3-0) seems to be going in the opposite direction. The Gauchos won their first four games this season, but have since dropped three of their last five.
Despite what happened in the past, coach Jorge Salcedo does not see tonight’s game as a grudge match, rather, a test for his team.
“They’re doing pretty well this year and are coming off a big win against Indiana,” Salcedo said. “We look at the game as a nonconference game. Obviously, every game we play we set out to win.”
Salcedo also thinks that his team needs to improve its play in the later stages of the game to emerge victorious. Specifically, the Bruins must take advantage of scoring opportunities when the ball is inside the box.
“If you think about the first 20 minutes of (Sunday’s) game, we had a lot of good plays and good moments, but we couldn’t quite finish our good buildups and good combinations,” Salcedo said. “We need to be sure with our concentration and be more clinical inside the box than we’ve been thus far this season.”
Tonight’s game may be a rematch of the national title game, but it is also UCLA’s final tune-up before Pac-10 play commences this weekend.
“We’ve been showing a little bit of fight,” Salcedo said. “The game against Santa Clara was a battle, and we did well. (On Sunday) we kept dealing with adversity, and I think we handled it OK. That’s going to make us stronger and going to help us prepare going into our conference play.”