G seemed to indicate that Mia Pante will start on the backline replacing Jimena Lopez. Sawyer Dumond and Kate Colvin seemed to split time at that spot in the spring. With a 27 player roster competition to get on the field will be fierce. He also indicated that everyone was on campus. The 2021 roster is on 12thman.com
Photo by Jamie Maury, TexAgs
Texas A&M Soccer
Talkin' all things soccer with Texas A&M head coach G Guerrieri
Key notes from G Guerrieri interview
- We're in camp right now, so my son would say this is level-10 Coach G with my big hat and coaching whistle. I'm happy to be in the air conditioning right now. Camp is so important for us because we want to give these kids a great first impression of what Texas A&M, Aggieland and Aggie soccer are all about. We've given so many people — whether they're still soccer players or not — that first view of this place. I'm about to start my 29th year here, and with a few thousand kids coming to camp every year, I'd love to see how many of those kids came to school here. I’d imagine it’s pretty high. I take personal pride in selling this university. When you're 10 or 11 years and get put into a great situation and great experience here, it's hard not to fall in love with it.
- This soccer program has come a long way. The first year we played, we played at A&M Consolidated Middle School because we didn't have a field on campus. We figured out where Ellis Field would be, and it was just a place where track would throw shot puts and javelin. Over time, we've had all of these things built into it. We've been to more tournaments, Sweet 16s, Elite 8s and Final Fours than almost anybody in the country. Now, our facility is unfortunately the worst on campus. Other regimes have overlooked us because we've still been able to win. I'm optimistic that the current regime with Ross Bjork will upgrade Ellis Field. Until then, we'll continue grinding.
- In the early years, my focus was on bringing in the best players from Texas. Since then, we've begun recruiting the best of the best against the best programs around the country. We're going to continue doing that and selling this place as one to win at.
- The United States Women’s National Team is the No. 1 women's soccer team in the world, and they've won the last two World Cups. It's a great prism to look at with women worldwide and countries who have had the most opportunities for women in the workplace and beyond. Within the United States, we got a great jump on the sport, winning the initial World Cup. In 1999, women's soccer went mainstream in this country, and that has had an effect on the men's side. We want to be the best in the world, and our men are up against some tough competition. Our women kick butt. In our sport, if you're looking at men's soccer and women's soccer, there are a lot of similarities to how the sport is played. Tactically, it takes us a few more passes. If you watch the EUROs, you're watching a game that's very similar to what my team plays.
- On the men's side, it's coming. People keep saying, "In ten years..." It keeps getting better and better. The game is evolving around the country and culturally. The great athletes are coming to the sport, and there is not a finite number of great athletes here. Finding the right people with the right body type with the right coaching and passion for the sport is not easy, but they're starting to catch up. You're seeing women's clubs pop up around the world as these super clubs invest in the women's game. It's becoming more difficult for our women's side. Overall, the game here is getting better, which in turn is helping the men's game. So many of our best players are under 23 right now, and that's a great sign of how MLS and academies have helped the game. Will we ever win a World Cup? I think we will. We have to keep developing our players.
- When you talk about Alex Morgan and Tobin Heath, we beat those players when they were in college because of how our players work. It has to be culturally, and it has to come from the players. It's why we won the SEC last year. The players determined our culture was going to improve, and they did that. Our team is here right now, and I'm not allowed to be around them. Still, they're working their tails off and getting better while nobody is watching. It's pretty incredible. If people came out to watch us practice, you'd be shocked at the volume coming from our players in training sessions. Practice is much more competitive than any of our games.
- In my opinion, the passion has to come from within, and those are the people we recruit. We are looking for that drive because it's contagious. If you train at 90 percent, you'll play at only 90 percent. You can't just turn it up unless you've done it consistently. We want to be intense in how we train, pay attention and operate. These women are fighting and dragging it out in practice, and when they play games, they're always ready to go.
- I did not enjoy playing in the spring this year. I did enjoy competing and winning. However, we are used to a five-month season. We start in July, the team is back in August, and we compete for a championship in December. The spring is about development, and we like that. Last year was a 10-month season, and the kids were never off. Even when they were home for Christmas, they had to stay fit. The players didn't really like it. We couldn't experiment this spring because we had to win games. When we finished the tournament in mid-May, we had to send the players away from the game for a little while and allow them to be college kids. We didn't want them to grind the entire summer because we will need them to grind this fall and don't want burnout to occur when it’s most important. The girls are excited to be back and getting it after it.
- We look at ourselves when we begin camp. One of the cool things about being a college coach is that every year is different. The players change year after year. We have to quickly do a self-evaluation of our strengths and what we have to hide. That'll be the biggest thing we look at. How are we going to play? Texas A&M soccer is not a formation team that plays a certain way other than trying to play precise passes to our forwards. We look at the team we have and find a way to get the 11 best players on the field. If seven of those are forwards, we'll find a way to make it work.
- We return 10 starters from the team that went to the Elite 8 with a phenomenal freshman class coming in. We have a lot of riches that we're going to figure out how to use.
- We try to find a way to make our talent work. Part of our consistency is in our inconsistency in how we play. If you play checkers against us, we'll find a way to win. It might not be traditional, but we will find a way to win.
- Only three seniors graduated last year, and they all turned pro. Replacing those players is not easy, but many have been replaced from within. One of the freshmen who has been here already is Mia Pante, and she's from Vancouver. She is a phenomenal player. Jimena Lopez ran the left side last year. Mia will do that this year. She is special, and people will be drawn to her. She's in motion all the time. Makhiya McDonald is another player to watch, and she ran an extremely fast 800m last year. She's a big-time forward with ankle-breaking moves. There are some Californians coming in with Natalie Abel and Olivia Fetzer. Carissa Boeckmann is going to be someone to watch. She's a monster. Off the field, she's so kind, but on the field, she takes no prisoners. She's great with the ball. Maile Hayes is another striker who will be fun to watch. She's similar to Nicky Thrasher, who was a Hall of Famer for us.
- Club soccer starts working with kids when they're eight years old. The environments people are in are important when we’re recruiting. We have pipelines into Texas A&M from around the state of Texas. We've had people from all over this state. California is a place we've worked hard to get into as well. You have to think about where kids can play the game every day of the year. We don't recruit much in upstate Minnesota because it’s frozen, and the kids can't play as much as they do in Orange County or Houston. Most of the better players are coming out of Southern California, Texas and the southern part of the United States.
- I'm the president of the Cavalry Youth Soccer, a boy's club in town. I want us to develop life-long friendships among these boys. I tell them as fifth graders that some of them will be in each other's weddings. They'll come back together in 40 years even though they're nine years old now. If we can create that culture and those relationships, that's what drives the club. We want to extend passion to the players. We've found if you've developed life-long friendships with great coaching, the winning takes care of itself. People around the state are shocked at how good Cavalry teams are. We have four teams in the Champions League of South Texas, and that's from little Bryan-College Station. If you take care of business, you're going to play in college, but that's not our goal. Our goal is to be better people, citizens and friends. If you do the right things day-by-day, everything else takes care of itself.
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