George Gelnovatch, Virginia men's soccer coach, has learned to choose his words carefully. Don't ask him if the Cavs will win the national championship. Don't ask him if this is the team that will return glory to Virginia soccer. It's too early to tell, he'll say, avoiding the question.
Anything to keep from jinxing himself.
What if he just came out and said what everybody is thinking? That this is Virginia's best team since 1997, when they made it to the national final, only to lose to UCLA. That this team is so talented, so deep at every position that coaching it is just a matter of pacifying the reserves, all of whom think they could start at any other team in the country.
But Gelnovatch doesn't want it to be Dec. 10 and be mulling over a preseason press conference prognostication gone horribly wrong. He knows the Cavs should be playing in the NCAA Championship game then, not sitting at home, contemplating what-could-have-beens.
Senior forward Ryan Trout, on the other hand, isn't as bashful: "We're going to be devastating to any team. We can win this year, definitely. Of course, we should have won in '97 too."
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But right now, the Cavs' are gushing about their litany of forwards. Juniors Sheldon Barnes and Rob Wright and sophomore Ryan Gibbs are holdovers from last season, when they jumped into the fire as starting underclassmen. Joining them is Trout, a finalist for the Hermann Trophy, which goes to soccer's top player. He moves to the attack from the midfield, where his offensive skills always overshadowed his defense anyway. Last season, Trout was the team's leading goalscorer and assistman.
Then there's the trio of raw but talented freshmen forwards: Alecko Eskandarian, Jacob LeBlanc and Ryan Kelly. Gelnovatch praised all of them for their athleticism and poise and said they will all see time, possibly even start.
With such a logjam at forward, Gelnovatch is experimenting with a new formation that stresses offense. The Cavs will begin the season starting four defenders, three midfielders and three forwards, rather than the traditional 4-4-2 setup.
"I think it utilizes the strengths we have," sophomore midfielder Kyle Martino said. "I don't think anybody else will be coming out with as many strengths and threats as we will."
Martino, last season's ACC Rookie of Year, has as much pressure on him as anybody else on the team. Also a Hermann finalist, Martino may have the hardest job in the new formation: maintaining a strong midfield with one less player. He'll have senior captain Steve Totten and sophomore Kenny Arena with him though. The three started to develop chemistry at the end of last fall, and entering this season, they think they'll more than make up for the graduation of midfielder Drew O'Donnell, the only player from last season's team who doesn't return.
If the Cavs have any hope of winning their sixth national title, it is their backline that is going to have to match every goal scored by the highly-touted attack with a defensive stop. Right now, Gelnovatch is going with veterans Chad Prince, Mike Feller and Jonathan Cole, along with freshman Mahatha Oliver as starters. Junior captain Marshall Leonard has started every game in his career, 46 out of 46, and has led the team in minutes played for two years. But with Oliver showing blazing development in the back, Leonard might begin the season on the bench.
Oliver "is big, he's fast, he's strong," Gelnovatch said. "He's probably one of the best athletes on the team as a first year. He's going to give us something back there that we've been missing: raw athleticism."
In fact, four freshmen could start on this team, a testament to Gelnovatch's recruiting prowess, but with strong veteran players at every position, they might be lost in the numbers crunch. Contrast that to last season when the Cavs were so desperate for talent that they started five wide-eyed freshmen. Now the rebuilding is over, and Virginia, ranked No. 10 in the country in the preseason, has enough talent to win a title.
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