After 11 wins, Syracuse Club Men’s Football is headed to nationals
Courtesy of Alexander Michael
The Syracuse club team will compete in Alabama for the national championship.
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On Oct. 11, 2019, Cuse Men’s Football Club traveled an hour south to Binghamton for their last game of a season, which ended without any wins. CMFC entered the game with 12 players on its depth chart, leaving only one substitute and giving the team more substitutes than recorded wins over the season.
The younger players on the team still had future seasons ahead of them, but the seniors were preparing for the end of their CMFC tenure and possibly the last time they’d play competitive soccer. Midfielder Kevin Ward’s parents made the trip to Binghamton for what they believed would be his last time playing soccer.
“I thought it would be my last competitive soccer game,” Ward said. “And at the same time, the team wasn’t all that interested in the season anymore since we hadn’t won a single game.”
CMFC fell to Binghamton and finished the season winless. After posing for a team picture, the team walked off the field for the last time in 2019. The next spring, CMFC nominated three captains — Alexander Michel, Cesar Romero and Ward, who decided to return to Syracuse University for graduate school.
Under that leadership this year, the team is 11-1-2 and will play in the national championship in November. CMFC’s improvement since going winless two years ago is the result of the captains’ commitment to growing the program and bringing in unique ideas, multiple players said.
Ward was cut several times before making the club team his senior year. He had committed himself to early-morning workouts and countless nights practicing, finally becoming team captain in his final year. In this position, Ward aided in the on-field tactics and provided analytical information for his teammates to use during their matches.
Michel and Romero joined the club during their freshman year. While Michel was injured at the end of his sophomore season in 2019, Romero became close with Ward. Once the three were nominated to be team captains, Romero introduced Ward and Michel to each other, and all three started looking for ways to help the team win.
“We were telling ourselves, ‘What do we want to do with this team?’” Romero said. “Do we want to just take it any other season and tread calm waters or do we want to take that risk and go into a storm and do what it takes?”
Romero said he grew up playing soccer on the dirt patches of Mexico City before moving to California when he was 6 years old. Goalkeeping was never a thought until his club team needed a goalie and the coach’s son didn’t want to play, from then on he enjoyed goaltending. At CMFC, he became the starting keeper as a sophomore.
The captains came in with new formations this year, coming up with different ways to attack opponents. The trio would text each other to workout or play together after they finished their homework. But then, their vision was put to a pause.
Three weeks prior to the start of the fall semester, the club’s 2020 season was canceled due to the pandemic. The team’s newest additions were forced to wait longer to play and the seniors possibly had the last time they’d ever play competitive soccer taken away.
The three captains struggled to keep each other motivated during the 2020 fall semester, with limited practices, and slowed communication between the group, Michel said.
But once the spring semester started — unaware if and when the pandemic would end — the captains became determined to build the team from the ground up. They invited students they’d played against in pickup games to play together Friday and Saturday nights at the Skytop Fields. During the pickup games, the captains sat back and scouted, gaining a better sense for who could be added to their roster, Ward said. Then on May 5, the club was approved to have a 2021 season.
“We were never really able to celebrate having a season because we know it can all go wrong in one moment,” Michel said. “That helped us not take things for granted.
This summer, Michel trained with FC 4188, a semi-pro team in Maryland, where he is from. He credits the team with teaching him specific skill drills that he could use as a captain on CMFC, such as the “three team drill,” where players are divided into three teams and whichever team wins the most games stays on the field. Michel even modeled the CMFC training from his semi-pro sessions and created a preseason schedule for the team, something that hadn’t been done in previous years.
Two weeks before the school year started, the captains led multiple training and conditioning sessions every day. New drills and formations were added, and the captains added a new rule that players had to earn their jersey each week or it would be taken from them and given to another teammate.
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Michel was on track to play college soccer until he tore his ACL in high school. Now, as one of the team’s captains, he handles the main tactical game information, along with CMFC’s coach Ibraheem Abdi, who handles the analytical side. In addition to bringing aggressiveness to the team, Michel is also responsible for calming players down when they become upset and instructing others to enter the box to prevent a team penalty.
CMFC players said the captains have inspired the team to work harder. The captains lead early-morning practice sessions and film sessions to analyze mistakes from their previous games.
The team returned to the pitch on Sept. 12, 2021, and won its first game — which was against the Oswego Football Club — 2-1. The team outscored opponents 24-4 over the regular season, and CMFC recorded a six-game winning streak. Their communication, led by the captains, was sharp.
On Oct. 10, CMFC traveled to Binghamton — two years after finishing the 2019 season winless — for its final regular-season game. This time, CMFC left with a 2-1 win, posting a final regular-season record of 8-1-1 and finishing in first place in the division and No. 6 in the region. The captains’ work to rebuild the club worked, as CMFC qualified for regionals.
Then, CMFC entered the regional tournament looking to keep its season alive. After beating No. 7 seed West Chester University and a draw with No. 18 seed Villanova University, CMFC made the Final Four for the first time in club history. The next day, CMFC pulled out a win after penalty kicks over Delaware and followed that with a title-game win over Tufts where CMFC prevailed 5-3 after penalty kicks to tie with UConn Blue for the regional tournament. The team is only two wins away from the national championship, marking the best season in club history.
“It’s as good as it gets,” Romero said. “This was the dream I was looking forward to. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Published on October 27, 2021 at 12:57 am
Contact Irie: irharris@syr.edu
