Men's Soccer Friday Preview: UC Santa Barbara vs UC Riverside

Men's Soccer Friday Preview: UC Santa Barbara vs UC Riverside

 This Friday the undefeated UCSB Gauchos will take on the UC Riverside Highlanders (only recently defeated). The Gauchos look to go without a loss in their 9th game of the season while the Highlanders look to bounce back after an embarrassing 2-0 loss to Cal State Bakersfield.

Scoping it Out:

 The game this Friday is crucial for both teams as a win by either could be reflected in the next polls while a loss could significantly move UCSB down and would most likely knock UCR out of the rankings entirely. While the game will be hard fought there are some inherent conditions which may adversely affect one team or the other. These concerns were expressed by UCSB head coach Tim Vom Steeg in an interview on Tuesday Night. Among the concerns listed he emphasized that UCR tends to play the exact same tactic every year which is very dramatically favored by their home field. The field is narrow in its dimensions and this allows UCR to run its traditional play of kicking a long ball and counterattacking. While this may be unfair it is still allowed by regulation and surely many of UCR's victories this season will be attributed to their schedule which features 10 home games with what is currently ranked (by RPI) as the easiest schedule of all the teams in Big West. Another concern (primarily for Riverside) is their lack of fans which obviously makes their team lose morale.

What We Can Expect From Our Boys (Gauchos, obviously):

This is what Vom Steeg said he expects on the injuries for Friday-

Machael David-will most likely come back next week

Achille Campion-some chance (depends on how he feels)

Peter Schmetz-is out for Friday

Dion Acoff-expected to be back on Friday

Javier Castro-swelled up above the knee, he'll be out for Friday

How to Approach this Match:

  Riverside and Santa Barbara are both currently tied for highest winning percentile in Big West but this is a rather misleading statistic. The Gauchos are currently ranked #3 in the NSCAA rankings while Riverside is #24. With their previously undefeated status Riverside had unfolded an impressive record of 7-0-0 but without that there isn't much of an impression to be made; there wasn't anything else (besides multiple consecutive wins) to be expected from playing mostly unranked teams and thus their 15 minutes of fame have come to an end with their defeat last weekend. Will they be able to grasp this coming opportunity to make a statement? My prediction is probably not. Vom Steeg has quite a bit under his belt and he will have formulated some ingenious strategy to deal with whatever Riverside has to throw in. With this and ridiculously talented players with exposure from all over the world UCSB clearly has the favor in this match.

Final Score Prediction: UCSB 3 UCR 0