The No. 16 Virginia men’s soccer team will be heading back onto the road this weekend as they get ready to take on No. 13 Louisville.
The Cavaliers (3-1-2, 0-1-1 ACC) will be traveling to Louisville, Ky. in search of their first conference win of the season when they take on a strong Cardinals (6-1-1, 2-0-0 ACC) team. Virginia has lost to Wake Forest and tied Clemson thus far in ACC play. However, the Cavaliers remain confident in its ability to emerge victorious.
Virginia hopes it can take the momentum it built during the second half against Clemson last week, and carry it into this weekend’s match. The Cavaliers outscored Clemson, one of the top teams in the nation, 2-0 in the second half to narrowly avoid another ACC loss.
“The overtime, we were not a completely different team, but we were way better,” sophomore defender Sergi Nus said. “We’re going to take advantage of the energy of the second half, and I’m sure that we’re going to get a positive result.”
Virginia coach George Gelnovatch noted that there is plenty for the Cavaliers to learn from the game against Clemson that can help them against another strong team in Louisville. Gelnovatch specifically pointed to Virginia’s youth and some of the mental errors they must move past and eliminate.
“I keep saying we’re pretty young, and we just need to keep growing up a little bit, and I don’t say that in a, you know, belligerent way,” Gelnovatch said. “I said it to the team, I mean, that it’s a process. You can’t just grow up overnight, but I think we can speed it up by addressing some of the issues.”
Some of those issues Gelnovatch referenced were not the Clemson goals themselves, but rather the manner in which the scores occurred, which highlighted deficiencies in the team that require improvement.
“When [Clemson] scored the second goal, we got a little rattled, right, and, again, that’s another lack of maturity — like [if we don’t get] rattled and go into halftime [down] 2-1 instead of 3-1, we [could] win the game,” Gelnovatch said. “So I think that’s probably the thing we’re cautious of, that we’re a little young, we’re going to make mistakes [and] we’re going to try to limit those mistakes, especially the mental ones.”
Nus agreed Virginia will try to assess those issues they struggled with in the game against Clemson, and continue to work on them this week in order to carry the momentum they built in the second half in last weekend’s match.
“We are going to analyze the game, we’re going to do the video, we’re going to try to avoid to do the mistakes that we did,” Nus said, “and take advantage of the positive things. I’m sure that we’re going to learn a lot from the second half.”
Despite the optimism that Virginia maintains, they are not looking past any opponent. Virginia knows they have to head into every match with a sense of urgency, especially with its difficult schedule of play. Gelnovatch said he believes the Cavaliers have done a good job of staying focused so far this season.
“Every game’s a sense of urgency to win, seriously,” Gelnovatch said. “I think you saw that against VCU, how we treated that, so we’re playing hard, we’re playing well. We were this close to getting a point at Wake, it’s just those are the margins — we’ll just keep working at it.”
The Cavaliers know that Louisville will be a tough team to play against, for they beat the No. 3 team in the nation, Notre Dame, last week. To make matters more challenging, Virginia will be on the road.
“Louisville is a really, really good team,” Nus said. “They just beat … Notre Dame, so, you know, that is going to be a really tough road game, road trip, but we are really confident. Coach has been telling us we are doing the things good and the team chemistry … is really good, so I’m sure we are going to get a good result.”
The ACC showdown between the Cavaliers and the Cardinals will kick off Saturday at 7 p.m. at Dr. Mark & Cindy Lynn Stadium.
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