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Chat Live With Head Coach Sasho Cirovski on Thursday, Oct. 13, from 12:30-1 p.m.
Log on to www.umterps.com this Thursday, Oct. 13, to chat live with men's soccer head coach Sasho Cirovski. The Terrapin head coach will answer your questions about for 30 minutes about the 2005 season.
The Terps are off to another strong season. As of Oct. 10, Maryland is 8-3-0 and 3-1-0 in ACC play. Maryland has been ranked in the Top 20 all season long.
Coach Cirovski is in his 13th season at Maryland. He has guided Maryland to four College Cup appearances (1998, 2002, 2003, 2004) and one ACC Tournament title (2002). The Terps have been to the NCAA Tournament 10 times during Cirovski's tenure and have 11 straight winning seasons. He won his 200th game earlier this season.
The chat will not begin until Thursday, Oct 13 at 12:30, but please feel free to submit questions now and we'll save them for when he arrives.
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Moderator: Welcome everyone. Thanks for submitting the questions. Coach should be here shortly. |
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| Gerald (Towson): Hey Coach, good luck this week. How important was it for you to get a road win last Friday against Duke? |
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Sasho Cirovski: Thank you Gerald. The win at Duke was a great win as you said because we have such tremendous respect for Duke. They were the preseason No. 1 team in the conference and returned their entire College Cup team. I was real proud of the way our team responded in the second half. It was probably our best half of the year. We hope to build on that for the rest of the season. |
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| Alex (Rockville): What kind of problems does North Carolina pose on Friday night? What is your biggest concern with their team? |
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Sasho Cirovski: They present a number of problems because they are solid all over the field. They have some very gifted attacking players and can hurt you in different ways. McCarty is a terrific passer of the ball, Corey Ashe is a great dribbler, Hunter has a great shot and Scott Campbell is a complete player in the attacking midfield position. Our back five will have to have a very good game to contain them. |
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| Meghan (Fort Meade): Did you ever think that Jason Garey would be the all-time goals leader and points leader when you recruited him? |
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Sasho Cirovski: The quick answer is no. The long answer is that you never label what accomplishments your recruits are capable of having in their career. It's a real tribute to Jason's resiliency and development that he has achieved this monumental record ... when you consider the quality of attacking players we've had in this program. He has improved as a player every year and for the past two years has been a marked man but has yet still scored against the top teams in the country. |
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| Brian (College Park): Do you think The Crew's exposure on Friday night against North Carolina will have an effect college soccer attendance nation wide? |
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Sasho Cirovski: I certainly hope so. When I helped put this package together, a large part of my motivation was to show the incredible atmosphere that college soccer has around the country, in particular I always had the crew in mind. To showcase the positive energy and passion that the crew exhibits for the full 90 minutes and beyond and their creativity is something I know people around the country take notice of and appreciate and hopefully replicate. |
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| Ken (San Jose, CA): Coach, great to see that your team is having another successful year. How do you rate the confidence of the players right now? Also, are you recruiting more kids from Cali and other Western states this year? Thanks. |
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Sasho Cirovski: I think our players are extremely confident coming off four good results against some great competition. We are more connected than we have been and hope to continue to grow as we face another difficult stretch in our schedule.
We will continue to recruit the best players that fit into our plans regardless of where they are from. Obviously California has been very good to us with Maurice, Chris and Robbie being integral parts of our team. |
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| Laurel, Maryland: First congratulations on now passing 200 victory's. I bring my children to the games as much as possible, how important is the crowd to the team beyond those wacky fun loving students? |
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Sasho Cirovski: The community crowd, in particular the family crowd, is very important to me since I am the father of three girls who also love coming to the games. I am continually trying to make Ludwig Field a family friendly environment while nurturing our student body to keep their passioniate support . I am working on areas to improve Ludwig for families and children, i.e. concession stands, rest rooms and eventually a child friendly play zone in the future. I appreciate your support and I'm hoping your children enjoy the games as much as mine do. |
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| Bob/College Park: You have the #2 ranked recruiting class this year- have they lived up to what you expected? |
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Sasho Cirovski: I am very happy with our recruiting class. They are not only very talented but extremely conscientious and team-oriented. We have a lot of very good players who are getting better every day and in the tradition of our development process, I am excited to showcase them in the future. We have an experienced and deep team and some of the players are patiently waiting for their chance. |
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| Brady (Frederick): I want to change things up a bit, who is the funniest player on the team? Good luck Friday. |
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Sasho Cirovski: We have so many strange and funny guys that it is a hard question to answer. When Maurice gets off his Sidekick and actually converses he is extremely funny. When Kevin Tangney opens up a little bit the guys end up in hysterics. When Pat Wilson does his voice impressions the guys are falling down left right and center. And, of course, there is Kevin Reiman who is probably the funniest guy on the team, bar none. Our guys have a tremendous sense of humor and love being around each other and provide a lot of comic relief to each other all of the time. They even get me laughing hysterically, although I don't always show it to them. |
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| James (King of Prussia): Coach, with the tough schedule you all have faced, what players from opposing teams have stood out? |
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Sasho Cirovski: One of the great things about playing the schedule we play is that we get to face some of the top players in the country. At UCLA there was Marvell Wynne, Jordan Harvey and Sal Zizzo impressed me. Dominic Oduro is a special talent that will have success at the next level. At Penn State, both Omekanda and Yeisley were handfull up top but I really like Walters and Devlin in the midfield. Aaron King from NC State was the best striker we've faced all year. He is a hanfull. Wake has great players all around, but Justin Moose and Ryan Solle are a bit special. Michael Lahoud has the makings of their next special player. And of course Duke has a good three-midfielder combination in the country with Videira, Camp and Loftus -- all three are destined to play at the next level. Though he was injured against us, Jeff Curtin of Georgetown is a top-class defender. |
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| Bryan (Camden, NJ): Can you talk about Stephen King and how he has progressed through the season? After his big game against Fullerton, he kind of slowed up but now he seems to be going again..... |
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Sasho Cirovski: Stephen has been steady all year, that's his trademark. He is an extremely consistent player for us. The Fullerton game was a bit of an anomoly where he scored four goals in the first 30 minutes, and it's a bit unfair to expect that out of every game. I am not surprised that he is our second leading scorer at this point since he has a great feel for not only providing the penetrating passes but putting himself into position to be on the end of them. |
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| Sean (Cleveland): Hi Coach -- You saw Akron in the preseason, do you think they are a legitimate national championship contender? |
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Sasho Cirovski: Yes I feel Akron is a legitimate national contender. Kenny Lolla has done a masterful job of finding the right pieces all over the field that seem to fit well together. They have both the competitveness and the ability to beat any team in the country. They are extremely well organized and disciplined and believe in themselves. These are all qualities necessary to be a legitimate contender. They also have outstanding veteran leadership. |
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Moderator: Last question.... |
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| Jill (Bethesda): Congratulations, Coach, on a great season so far! The Terps lost 2 games when the opponent scored an early. Have you put any new schemes in place to keep this from happening again? |
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Sasho Cirovski: Thanks Jill. When we lost those two games early in the year, we created many good opportunities to score but the ball was not bouncing our way. We were not as sharp as we needed to be in the final third with our execution and the quality of our movement off the ball. We have worked extremely hard on that in the weeks following that and we feel like we have improved in that area. We have also worked hard at improving our mental and physical preparation for the first part of that game. |
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Sasho Cirovski: Thanks everyone. I hope to see all of you at Ludwig tomorrow night for what I hope to be a great showcase for college soccer. I have tremendous respect for Carolina and I know our team will be ready to play and entertain all of you in attendance. Go Terps! |
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Moderator: That concludes today's chat. Thanks everyone for participating. The chats continue to be a great success. If you have any feedback, please send it to azundell@umd.edu. Thanks again, and go Terps! |
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