The Rebuild of a Soccer Club

By: Geiler Damian, Reporter

After going through a rebuild year in the Fall of 2019, UNO soccer club was forced to go dormant due to Covid-19. 

In the Spring of 2021, when things went back to normal, previous soccer club player Jackson Davis wanted soccer club to come back as well. Since it wasn’t happening, he decided to step up.

“After a while, I kind of just got tired of waiting and I was like fine, I’ll take charge, so I took the initiative,” Davis said.

Davis became UNO soccer club president and with the important help of his officers, soccer club is back in UNO. 

The Fall of 2021 was a rough season. The team and officers were inexperienced and they faced several challenges. 

The UNO Soccer club team doing rondos in practice before their game against the University of Nebraska Lincoln. (Photo/ Geiler Damian)

Since they were unaware of the competitions that exist for club teams, the team was only able to set up a few informal friendly games.

The university doesn’t give out much support to soccer club, making everything a bit harder. 

Soccer club is given a couple of hundred dollars a year but there are forms for every little detail and there are always communication issues between the people above the officers.

“If we need to reserve the field for practice, I need to inform the advisor, who then informs his boss, who then has to inform the athletic director,” Davis said. “And just as if goes up that way, it follows the inverted path back down.”

This season, the situation is much brighter. The team had tryouts where 44 people showed up. The team is participating in the Kansas Missouri Soccer League and even received a 35 hundred-dollar sponsor by Scheels.

“Last year was kind of like, just like we just playing for fun but this year we kind of more focusing on winning the games, getting better as a team. I enjoy everything here,” said UNO soccer club player Hideaki Arimoto 

Hideaki Arimoto practices his first touch by juggling the ball. (Photo/ Geiler Damian)

The team received an invitation from Kansas City F.C. and was able to go to Kansas and watch an MLS match. 

So far, the club team has played five games. They have won two games and lost three.