Although the spring men’s soccer schedule may not be played out for standing positions or championships, it is nonetheless imperative that the team is ready for each of these endeavors come fall. It is an opportunity for the current team to play together again for the first time and to gain its legs against some tough competition. What better competition to measure your skills against than a professional team?
That’s exactly what the Badgers will do, taking on the Milwaukee Rampage at 7 p.m. Friday evening at the McClimon Soccer Complex. The Rampage have appeared in back-to-back A-league semifinal games under Boro Sucevic, and two former Badgers — Josh Provan (graduated in 1996) and Brian Doherty (graduated in 1998) — currently play for the Rampage. It will be a homecoming of sorts for them and a good measuring stick for the current Wisconsin team.
“I think it’s a great opportunity,” said first-year UW head coach Jeff Rohrman. “It will give us a chance to test ourselves against some good competition. We got some good results in North Carolina on our spring trip (the Badgers went 2-0-1), but at the same time, I don’t think we were tested the way we’re going to be tested this week. It will be a great way to see what areas we need to improve on, both individually and collectively.”
For Badger fans, tomorrow night will be the first chance to see Rohrman in action on UW grounds. He took over the head coaching reins soon after the end of a mediocre and disappointing fall season, which was followed by the resignation of former head coach Kalekeni Banda. For the past seven years Rohrman enjoyed a very successful assistant coaching stint at Maryland.
Rohrman is also no stranger to the state of Wisconsin. He played at and graduated from UW-Milwaukee before playing professionally for the Milwaukee Wave in 1986-87. With this impressive soccer pedigree, Rohrman comes to Madison with the task of returning a Badgers squad that has recently gone through some disappointing times back to national prominence. He’s already made some noticeable changes early in his tenure.
“This spring, we changed some things in the back (of the field),” he said. “We’ve transformed a couple of midfielders into defenders, so there’s been a little bit of an adjustment period there in terms of sorting some things out defensively. I think in the attack we play well, [but] the question there is how consistent we’ll be. I think one of the things we’ve seen is that we can create chances, it’s just a matter of converting them.”
According to Rohrman, the team has been very receptive to the coaching change. They should also be experienced and ready to go for the upcoming fall season, returning six starters from last year’s squad, which had three freshmen among their top six scorers. The new team also carries seven seniors, something that should help ease Rohrman’s transition.
“I think [the team] is excited. They’ve been playing with a lot of emotion and intensity,” Rohrman said. “It’s a good group of guys. I’m kind of fortunate to come into a team where there are seven seniors. That’s going to be critical for us this fall in terms of their leadership and how they work with the young guys and lead them in the right way.”
The NCAA rules for men’s spring soccer allow a team to play five days of games. The teams, however, are able to modify these games to their wishes.
For example, instead of playing one full 11-man game in one day, a team may choose to play a seven-a-side tournament in which they would compete in three games in one day.
Rohrman expressed the sentiment that when playing a professional team like the Rampage, it’s better to play a full 11-man game. This, he feels, will allow the team to assess its play in a full-scale measure.
While it is likely that the Badgers may not come away with a win against a professional team like the Rampage, they know that the game will give them a strong sense of where they are at this early stage of the year. It should also make for some very exciting soccer.
“I think everybody is competitive and wants to win,” said Rohrman. “The thing is, we’ll know what the result is. To the rest of the community and the country, they don’t care what the result is, but I think internally, we for sure want to do well. We want to win the game, and I think we all understand that we have to play very well to compete with [the Rampage].”
