The UCLA women’s soccer team has come so close.
They are so good that they have made it to the final four at the College Cup each of the past five years. They are unquestionably one of the powerhouses in women’s soccer, as reflected by the No. 1 ranking they currently hold. They have a coach who was an Olympic assistant, and a returning forward who was a finalist for the MAC Hermann Trophy.
But they don’t have a national championship. At least not yet.
Technically terrific
At the outset, it appears the 2008 edition of the UCLA women’s soccer team will have as good a shot as any at bringing home that elusive national championship.
The team loses only three players to graduation and returns a core of upperclassmen involved in the squad’s runs to the semifinals in each of the past few years.
Among the returning upperclassmen are junior forward Kara Lang, senior midfielder Christina DiMartino and junior forward Lauren Cheney. Lang is an Olympian who played for her native Canada in Beijing, DiMartino is a first-team All-American, and Cheney was named national player of the year by several publications in 2007.
Add to that seven outstanding freshmen, several of whom have experience playing in the U.S. national team program, and you have a very talented team, according to coach Jill Ellis.
“Already with this group, it’s a very close group with a lot of a talent,” Ellis said. “I think this is probably the most technical ““ I mean top to bottom ““ the most technical team I’ve ever had. I’ve had very special technical players, but from our starting players to the reserves they’re very technical, and that lends itself to how we’re going to play.”
The idea that this Bruin team has talent was a sentiment echoed by Lang, DiMartino and Cheney. But the players pointed to variety of other strengths as well.
For Cheney, having so many players on the team with so much experience playing in high pressure situations is invaluable. She said she thinks the team’s strong leadership will help ensure that the group never gets too comfortable or overconfident.
“Our senior class is just awesome,” Cheney said. “And having so many seniors with such experience, I think that’s really special. We’ll have a lot of leadership from them and the experience coming back from the Olympics from our coach’s standpoint. It will be great for us.”
DiMartino, who went through a grueling preseason with the team while Lang and Cheney were competing in China, also sees a very special bond among this group of athletes. During their three weeks of two-a-day practices and training, the team had the opportunity to get away from UCLA and travel to Big Bear to do a ropes course. There, they cooked each other’s meals and bonded away from Westwood.
“Our strength as a team is the closeness we have,” DiMartino said. “We all have great relationships, and we’re really close as a team. It’s the bond that we share. We’re like a big family. No matter what, if you’re having a good or bad day, we’ll be there to pick each other up. I think that’s what’s special about our team. We all have a goal, we all care about each other, and we all want to see each other succeed, and I think that helps us a lot.”
Perhaps one physical manifestation of the team’s common sense of purpose and cohesiveness is the blue and gold string bracelets the team made during the preseason. Lang said team members wear them all the time, even in games when they’re not supposed to.
“It’s kind of there just to always remind us that we’re all here for each other and we’re all working towards the same thing,” she said.
Getting physical
According to Ellis, there are four areas of the game of soccer a team must master: tactical, technical, psychological and physical aspects. She says that for a team to make it to the College Cup, it will have to find a balance among all four.
If the Bruins have one area that most needs improvement, Ellis knows the team’s physicality could use work.
“What I’m going to challenge them to do this year is to have an even greater physical dimension,” she said. “And I don’t mean work capacity, I mean ability to win 50-50 balls, because we are not always going to be the biggest team on the field, but we have to play in such a way that we can match another team’s physicality.”
Lang agreed that while the team is tactically and technically sound, the Bruins sometimes find themselves caught off guard by more physical opponents from outside the Pac-10.
“I think where we sometime meet some difficulty is when we do come up against teams that are more physical than we’re used to,” Lang said. “In our own conference, there’s not as many teams that necessarily challenge us physically as much as team’s in other conferences. We’re learning, and I think that from our experiences in the past, we’re realizing that that’s something we need to work on and be prepared for once we get to the postseason, and I think we will be.”
Aside from becoming more physical, the team also will have to replace All-American goalkeeper Valerie Henderson, who started for four years for the Bruins. Redshirt senior Ashley Thompson has filled in nicely between the polls for UCLA, giving up only one goal in six games.
“It’s kind of a great story,” Ellis said of Thompson. “She’s a fifth year senior, she could have graduated, but she chose to come back. She’s been (Val Henderson’s) backup for four years, and now she’s starting every game, and her confidence is growing. I think her teammates’ confidence in her is growing. … I’m just really proud of the way she’s stepped up just now.”
And Ellis is also concerned about getting her talented freshmen enough game experience during the season. She said that getting them up to speed with the upperclassmen will be pivotal if this team hopes to make a run in the postseason.
“We have to phase them in gradually, so they’re not in awe of the big game,” Ellis said. “We’re doing a lot more coaching this year in practice then I have in the past. I’m breaking it down a lot more this year because that’s how we can try to help our freshmen.
Dealing with lofty expectations
It’s no secret that the Bruins will be disappointed if they fail to reach the College Cup for the sixth consecutive year.
“I think our expectation is to make it there, and if not, we will be disappointed,” DiMartino said. “I don’t like to put too much pressure on us ““ I think you get what you deserve, and hopefully if you put in the hard work, it will show, and we’ll get the results we want.”
That seems to be the attitude of this team ““ take nothing for granted and work hard.
“I think we know we’re going to have to work, and the past five years really doesn’t mean anything if we can’t pull it together this year again and make it (to the College Cup),” Lang said. “Every year that we get there and we don’t come home with the win makes us want it even more. With so many seniors who have come so close so many times, we’re hoping that that will work to our advantage and have it be enough motivation.”
And as if coming up just short isn’t motivation enough, getting upset by rival USC in last year’s national semifinal might just add a little extra incentive to get over the hump.
“USC, regardless of opportunities, they finished their chances and stayed in it the full 90 minutes and we didn’t,” Cheney said. “We had a few lapses that cost us the game. So I definitely think there is motivation behind that. Not necessarily revenge towards USC, but just for all the players who were there, to never let that happen to our team again ““ to let down in a game.”
Cheney, then, seems to recognize exactly what her coach has come to realize. Ellis, who acknowledges that she has “turned over every stone” and even consulted John Wooden about dealing with pressure and nabbing that national title, knows that winning comes down to executing at pivotal moments and playing a full 90 minutes.
“What’s the magic formula?” asked Ellis rhetorically.
“Every team we’ve had has had heart, every team we’ve had is competitive, every team we’ve had over the past 10 years has been talented. So what does it come down to in a game? It comes down to putting your chances away and playing for 90 minutes, and not 20 minutes or 45 minutes.
“I think in our sport, where the margin for error is so great because it’s such a flowing game, we have to execute. And the difference between us having five national championships and no national championships is sometimes a matter of inches.”
Six games into the season
Early results, at least, seem to indicate the Bruins are on the road back to College Station. The team is 5-0-1 with a win over No. 6 Portland already under its belt.
The team has gotten a chance to welcome back Cheney, Lang and Ellis from Beijing but will be without them for a few weeks of non-conference play.
While Ellis will stay with the team, both Cheney and Lang have taken or will take personal trips home to see their families, considering they have been training for the past seven months.
When all 25 members of the team finally convene, however, their sights will be set high.
First, there will be a showdown with USC on Oct. 24, where redemption might just sneak into the back of a few player’s minds.
Then, if things stay the course, the Bruins will begin their quest for a sixth straight College Cup, and the school’s first national championship ““ the ultimate reward that Lang admits she wants “pretty badly.”
Said Lang, “We’ve got a lot of seniors leaving who put in four hard years, and I think that as a whole, I don’t know if we’ve ever wanted it more than we do now.”