Twenty-three newcomers.
Thirteen freshmen and 10 transfers, the equivalent of two starting elevens’, are new to Bradley soccer this season.
After finishing 5-11-3 last year, Bradley looks to build from their impressive 2-1 victory in postseason play against the second-seeded Drake Bulldogs last season with a new look squad.
“We have numbers,” Braves head coach Jim DeRose said. “Last season we were at 23 and now we’re at 30 players and that’s a big help. We needed eight or nine guys to come in and be able to compete in a very tough conference.”
While the team might look different on the field, on the sidelines DeRose heads into his 28th year at the helm of the program. The winningest coach in Bradley soccer history and the longest tenured men’s soccer coach in the Missouri Valley Conference admits that the approach will change this season.
“Early in the season you see a lot of college basketball coaches play a lot of rotations, sometimes nine, ten, eleven guys on the roster getting minutes in the game,” DeRose said. “We’re trying to play a lot of guys and there is such a competitiveness for positions and minutes this season.”
The team won’t be completely different as Bradley returns 12 players from last season, with graduate midfielder Pepe Mellado being the sole senior on the team. The roles of these 12 will go beyond the weight room and into the daily lives of the younger members of the group.
“It’s just about being there as an upperclassman to help young players along when they have a lot of exams in a week or when it gets overwhelming,” DeRose said. “That’s the mentoring and I think that’s a word in college athletics that we lose a lot, how your upperclassmen can mentor, not lead.”
DeRose didn’t just bring in reinforcements for his locker room but also for his bench, bringing back assistant coach Brian Barnett after his successful first stint on the Hilltop that started in 2009. After six seasons at the helm of IUPUI men’s soccer, Barnett has already made his impact felt on the recruiting side of things.
“Brian had made himself known nationally as an incredible recruiter, and Brian’s fingerprints are all over this team,” DeRose said. “When we were out there recruiting we added a lot of new players who had experience at the college level.”
DeRose, Bartlett and assistant coach Tim Regan didn’t stop their search at the states; they looked beyond and brought with them eight players from abroad. Spanning from Germany to Paraguay, Bradley has never shied away from giving opportunities to international athletes.
Apart from changing the bodies that fill up the shirts, DeRose looks to shake up the tactical approach this season as well. After producing minimally last season, the goal this season will be to have the opposition worry about them a little bit more.
“Defend a little bit more by attacking, having the ball more, be in the attacking final third and [being in a position] where you don’t have to rely as much on your defending and goalkeeping,” DeRose said. “No ego when it comes to defending, they work, they get behind the ball and do the job off the ball as well.”
The Braves aren’t the only ones changing their play pieces as the MVC continues to add more teams to the conference. After adding Belmont and UIC last season, Western Michigan, Northern Illinois and Bowling Green make their debut as soccer affiliates for 2023.
With more teams in the conference, less conference tournament spots are up for the taking. Instead of having everyone in postseason play, now only six teams will get a chance to fight for a spot in the NCAA tournament.
“You kind of have to get everything ironed out by then because you’re not going to have the luxury of figuring it out in an eight-game season,” DeRose said. “You have to prepare as much as you can in the non-conference to get it right once the conference play starts.”
The Braves will be back in action Friday when they travel to Chicago to take on DePaul.
