Columnist Nick Green has written 100 Percent Soccer
since 2005. A
native of England, he began writing about soccer in
the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat
in the stands for one in
the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home
Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas
USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer.
Married to a long-suffering soccer widow, he has a cat
named Pele.Bruins Blog
This weekend I traveled with my UCLA soccer team to Indiana for the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic, a prestigious tournament that Indiana University has hosted for several decades.
The four teams invited to thee tournament were all top ten national-ranked teams, including Indiana, Maryland, Notre Dame, and of course us, UCLA. We fortunately had the opportunity to play Notre Dame and Indiana, two teams that we did not play during my freshman season. The emotions were felt by everyone as we were all anxious to get our season under way.
The Notre Dame game ended with a disappointing loss. We actually tied the game with only seconds left to take the game into overtime. Our left back Mike Zaher from Las Vegas hit a great cross to Chance Myers, who volleyed the ball into the side netting. With the momentum behind us, we entered overtime but were unfortunately defeated, 2-1.
With one loss behind us, we were still looking forward to the next game against Indiana to redeem ourselves. In front of a record crowd on a blistering hot Sunday afternoon, we displayed a great first half of soccer on both sides of the ball. Unfortunately, we came away on the short end of the stick, as we were scored on with nearly fifteen minutes to go. We were never able to overcome the deficit.
With two disappointing results this past weekend, we returned to LA with dampened spirits. However, we took away many lessons from this weekend.
As much as we all hate to lose as a team, it is now important for us to prepare for this weekend's game at Creighton.
Go Bruins!
- Kyle Nakazawa