Since Ruben Resendes became head coach of the Bryant University men’s soccer team in 2022, the Bulldogs have developed into a national powerhouse. The team is 13-0-2 on the season and is coming off a scoreless tie against Princeton, the top-ranked team in the country.
Morning Host Luis Hernandez spoke with Resendes about his team’s impressive season.
Interview highlights
On why Bryant men’s soccer team has been so successful
Ruben Resendes: A lot of people ask that question. And the reality is, we have a great coaching staff here. We have five assistant coaches who have done a great job building the roster with lots of capable talent and experience. That’s really the key. We have really, really high standards because we have good people on board, and the expectation for us is always to compete for a conference championship, always to give ourselves a chance to compete for a national championship. If you have those kinds of ambitions and goals, the way you live every day needs to be pretty consistent and disciplined.
On how Bryant is able to compete with more established soccer programs
Resendes: I think in soccer there isn’t like a huge, huge disparity in terms of the resources that we have, in terms of scholarships and NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness financial deals) and things like that in our world. I don’t think that disparity is as big as (it is in) basketball and football, to be fair. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely plenty of programs with better resources than what we have at Bryant. But I don’t think the disparity is that big.
We’re lucky enough to be given good enough resources to compete at this level, but it’s also true that we have to do really well with the resources that we’re given. You know, we can’t really swing and miss on guys. That’s kind of the key to it.
On the challenge of recruiting quality players to Bryant
Resendes: It’s tough. There’s a lot of talent domestically… But the truth is a lot of the top talent, blue chip talent that are going to be freshmen that we’re interested in coming into Bryant and making an impact on our program — lots of times they don’t really give us the time of day. I’m going to be honest with you. They’re getting recruited by some bigger-name schools, and regardless of how competitive we are compared to them on the field… lots of times we lose out.
We’ve done a lot of good business in the transfer portal since that’s become a thing. We do get some good domestic players there, some good international players there. There were guys that we were reaching out to the year before, before my first season here, that weren’t even answering our emails in the transfer portal. They weren’t picking up our calls. But then, after that success in 2022, we went 16-2-2 and won the conference championship – a lot of the transfer portal was now at least taking us seriously.
It’s also true that we go overseas. We got a lot of international players, but a lot of it is just the time thing. How much time are you willing to put into getting a player? You bring them on campus, you fly them here, you wine and dine them and then they got five other options, right? Lots of times when you’re speaking to an international player, the options are not quite as big. That gives us a better chance to get a guy. A lot of times that’s why we end up going overseas.
On the anticipation of Saturday’s game against defending national champion Vermont
Resendes: I think the anticipation and buildup for this game is big from what I’m understanding. There’s a lot of tickets sold, which is cool. At the end of the day, we tell our guys, “You’ve got to just play the same way that got us to this point. Don’t change anything; don’t play the occasion; don’t let the 90 minutes pass us by and then look back and say, ‘We should have done this. We should have done that.’”
Getting a positive result on Saturday night is huge for two reasons. It’s important for the NCAA tournament and also for the conference.
