UConn Men's Soccer - 2025 | Page 2 | The Boneyard

UConn Men's Soccer - 2025

dbmill said:
They said during the broadcast of the game that the crowd at the game was a sellout at the stadium.
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As full as I've seen it for the last couple seasons for sure. There were a ton of students at the game, so credit to the school for giving out those free tickets and filling the seats. They actually got the wave to make a full trip around the stadium at one point.
 
I actually really like what I’ve heard Gbandi saying this season. After the Syracuse game he said “we have bigger goals this year than beating Syracuse.” And he’s pretty consistently had that sentiment in other interviews as well.

Described the performance in last night’s UMass game as “somewhat okay” and said we have to be sharper while still giving credit to the team (and the crowd) for fighting back and taking something from the game.
 
The crowd showed up last night. Not much of a goal patrol or student section, but the stands were full and the atmosphere was decent. Overall, it was a great night to visit Storrs and support the Huskies. As for the product on the field? Not great. I thought UConn's back line was solid defensively, and #4 Gummesson impressed me the most at the CDM position. But offensively, this team has absolutely nothing threatening. They struggle to complete passes within the midfield, play mostly on one side of the field, have no threat up top, and lack any speed on the wings. UMass wasn't as strong as last year, and I don't expect them to be a ranked team very long. The quality of soccer last night was a little disappointing. I thought the Huskies were making strides in the past few years, but it looked like they took a little step back this season. I think the solid defensive line will get us some results against weaker teams. I don't expect them to compete with any top-quality teams this year. Gbandi continues to say the right things, but my biggest concern about the Huskies remains the talent level.
 

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yungdowork said:
Matter of perspective I suppose. We haven't won a conference championship in 13 years so comparing the current situation to when we were a national championship contender every year is kinda rough. Getting 3 kids drafted by MLS teams last year (and 2 the year before), and sending multiple other players to USL is the exact type of thing that should attract talent and make us better.

It's not apples-to-apples, but it reminds me a bit of UVM. They missed the tournament but showed improvement for the first 3.5 years (covid year) of Rob Dow's coaching tenure. Then they won their conference tournament, the next year they advanced to QFs in the tournament, and then 2 years later ended up winning the national championship. This is year 4 of the Gbandi experience, so we need to start making some noise at the end of the season, but it does feel like the framework has been improving year-over-year.
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I saw a post from Farmington's FSA FC that Kieren Chandler was signed by the Minnesota United. He spent 2 years at UConn 2023-2024, played 2 years at Loomis Chaffee 2021-2022. Parents must have been Kieren Coffey fans!

Sending guys to the pros should help UConn. I don't follow the college game close enough to know how many kids leave early to go pro but I'd imagine it must be similar to hoops.

www.mnufc.com

Minnesota United Sign MNUFC2 Defender Kieran Chandler to MLS Contract | MNUFC2

The 20-year-old joins the team on a one-and-a-half-year MLS contract, with club options for 2027 and 2028
www.mnufc.com www.mnufc.com
 
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bill6319 said:
The crowd showed up last night. Not much of a goal patrol or student section, but the stands were full and the atmosphere was decent. Overall, it was a great night to visit Storrs and support the Huskies. As for the product on the field? Not great. I thought UConn's back line was solid defensively, and #4 Gummesson impressed me the most at the CDM position. But offensively, this team has absolutely nothing threatening. They struggle to complete passes within the midfield, play mostly on one side of the field, have no threat up top, and lack any speed on the wings. UMass wasn't as strong as last year, and I don't expect them to be a ranked team very long. The quality of soccer last night was a little disappointing. I thought the Huskies were making strides in the past few years, but it looked like they took a little step back this season. I think the solid defensive line will get us some results against weaker teams. I don't expect them to compete with any top-quality teams this year. Gbandi continues to say the right things, but my biggest concern about the Huskies remains the talent level.
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They were fun to watch.

That's all I care about.
 
It's college soccer, so my expectations for quality were pretty low.
 
huskymedic said:
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This is a required freshmen class activity that UConn has made the most of since the Reid years. It puts them at the top of the attendance rankings each year and they make sure they stay there with some generous ciphering.
 
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Kolumbo said:
I saw a post from Farmington's FSA FC that Kieren Chandler was signed by the Minnesota United. He spent 2 years at UConn 2023-2024, played 2 years at Loomis Chaffee 2021-2022. Parents must have been Kieren Coffey fans!

Sending guys to the pros should help UConn. I don't follow the college game close enough to know how many kids leave early to go pro but I'd imagine it must be similar to hoops.

www.mnufc.com

Minnesota United Sign MNUFC2 Defender Kieran Chandler to MLS Contract | MNUFC2

The 20-year-old joins the team on a one-and-a-half-year MLS contract, with club options for 2027 and 2028
www.mnufc.com www.mnufc.com
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Yeah, Kieran Chandler got drafted in the 2nd round of the Superdraft last year. Here's the article about him signing his new contract.

The draft has 90 picks every year, so a decent amount of kids leave. In the last 2 years, we've had 5 total guys drafted. In 2024, Georgetown led the nation with 6 players drafted, not sure what the results were for the most recent draft.

-Jayden Hibbert (GK) - Mostly plays for Atlanta's affiliate team in MLS Next Pro. Made the bench for the big team a few times.
-Eli Conway (FW) - After being drafted 68th, split minutes at forward and left mid for us last year, transferred to FAU
-Mikah Thomas (LB) - Drafted 9th overall. Signed a contract in the summer, just won team of the week honors in MLS Next Pro
-Max Kerkvliet (GK) - Generally starting in MLS Next Pro for Real Salt Lake's affiliate.
-Kieran Chandler (LB) - Just got his new contract and is available for the MLS team after good showings in MLS Next Pro
 
Certainly we didn't look great, but I thought they played better than against Canada's team. Goals have been tough to come by, but there's some potential there up front. I thought they made some nice passes to switch sides of the field. Not high quality, but entertaining.
There were a fair amount of player losses from last year's team, so a little patience is required while they figure each other out.
 
0 -0 @ NJIT with 33 min remaining in the second half. The game is starting to get a little heated. Very physical, with some late tackles; neither team has much control of the game. Seems like the game could go either way
 
bill6319 said:
0 -0 @ NJIT with 33 min remaining in the second half. The game is starting to get a little heated. Very physical, with some late tackles; neither team has much control of the game. Seems like the game could go either way
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An 0-2 NJIT with losses to Loyola and Farleigh Dickinson.

Well they are 0-2-1 now. Reminder that UConn’s season went off the cliff last year because they scored 0 goals in 8 games and tied 0-0 with many bad teams. Well it continued into this season.
 
A Loyola team that lost to Syracuse 1-0…. Who we beat. Definitely a not great tie. But it’s better this happened on the road, rather than home which is what happened last year. I know we need wins but in big east play if we can play to a draw on the road and come away with wins at home I’d take that. I’m just hoping they finish 4th this season and grab a home big east game. I’d consider that progress at this point.
 
Jayden Hibbert, our goalie from 2 seasons ago, was just named to Canada’s national team for their upcoming friendlies. Another sign of success to point to when talking to recruits. Cyle Larin made the roster as well.
 
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UConn men's soccer playing at home tonight against Manhattan, UConn had a 2-1 lead at half time.
 
Pretty good performance. Manhattan scored a very good goal in transition pretty early on and it took barely a minute for the Huskies to respond. Charlie Holmes, Preston Alessio, Sabri Hanni, and Balthi Saunders all had very solid games offensively. Kyle Durham made 7 saves and some of them were not easy.

5-1 is a great result and more indicative of our performance than Manhattan in my opinion.
 
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UConn playing at home tonight against Central Connecticut. At half time UConn has a 1-0 lead.
 
dbmill said:
UConn playing at home tonight against Central Connecticut. At half time UConn has a 1-0 lead.
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A 1-0 win for UConn over Central Connecticut in the game tonight.
 
buddy said:
CCSU looked terrible. UConn not great offensive team.
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CCSU didn't look threatening but they were packing 9 guys in the box basically the whole game and they were working really hard defensively. Our normal ethos offensively seems to be look for line-breaking passes, little flicks, etc that open up a forward for a shot, but that is a lot less effective against a team that is so tightly packed into their own box. One way to combat this is to shoot from range, but the shots from distance that we took were not very good.

I personally thought the team should have been more willing to send crosses in, especially when we have Charlie Holmes and Evan Pickering at forward, who are both 6'3, and Austin Brummett who is very good at winning headers. Given the amount of possession we had in their half, it just seemed to me like we were too risk-averse while we tried to create the perfect opportunity instead of just generating more chances.

That being said, I'm pretty sure Brummett hit the post twice and I'd certainly be a lot less concerned if we won 3-0.
 
yungdowork said:
CCSU didn't look threatening but they were packing 9 guys in the box basically the whole game and they were working really hard defensively. Our normal ethos offensively seems to be look for line-breaking passes, little flicks, etc that open up a forward for a shot, but that is a lot less effective against a team that is so tightly packed into their own box. One way to combat this is to shoot from range, but the shots from distance that we took were not very good.

I personally thought the team should have been more willing to send crosses in, especially when we have Charlie Holmes and Evan Pickering at forward, who are both 6'3, and Austin Brummett who is very good at winning headers. Given the amount of possession we had in their half, it just seemed to me like we were too risk-averse while we tried to create the perfect opportunity instead of just generating more chances.

That being said, I'm pretty sure Brummett hit the post twice and I'd certainly be a lot less concerned if we won 3-0.
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I confess I don't know much about soccer and maybe my expectations are too high. Just looks like something is not right.
 
buddy said:
I confess I don't know much about soccer and maybe my expectations are too high. Just looks like something is not right.
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I don't think you were entirely off-base. Central was 1-14-1 last year and was committing so many guys to defense that they looked pretty out of place when they had the ball. We really should have had a better performance all things considered.

That being said, we just came off our best offensive performance in the last 2 years against Manhattan so I'm inclined to give the team the benefit of the doubt for now. Our talent level on offense is undoubtedly better than last year with the additions of Brummett and Balthi Saunders, just have to hope it translates.
 
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