Fantastic ESPN article on Bubonja
Aug 25, 2009 11:56:34 GMT -6
Post by Big D on Aug 25, 2009 11:56:34 GMT -6
Wow....this is good stuff.
espn.go.com/chicago/story?columnist=powers_scott&id=4419554
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Bubonja readjusts goal; eyes big year
UIC goaltender looks to make the most out of tough situation
By Scott Powers
ESPNChicago.com
Archive
University of Illinois-Chicago goalkeeper Jovan Bubonja was supposed to leave for a professional soccer career after his junior season.
There wasn't going to be any weighing of options. This was fact. He was certain of it. His teammates knew it. Flames coach John Trask supported him. Everything Bubonja did, from loading up his course schedule so he could graduate early to meeting with potential agents, was in preparation for his departure following the 2008 season.
His blueprint for the future, though, would be shredded in a moment. He couldn't get out of his teammate's way; his teammate couldn't get out of his. Like that, they collided during practice. It happened just days after a NCAA Tournament win, a win Bubonja greatly influenced. They crashed, his body fell to the ground, the excruciating pain of breaking his right clavicle instantly hit him, and everything came to a halt.
"When he got injured that night, and I told him this, my thought process was not at all, 'Oh, no, what are we going to do against North Carolina in the Sweet 16?'" Trask said. "I thought to myself right then, 'Uh-oh, the MLS clubs are not going to give him Generation Adidas, and he's going to miss the international transfer window.' And sure enough, that's what happened."
UIC exited the NCAA tournament in the following round without Bubonja; he wasn't selected to Generation Adidas -- a MLS program to promote a select number of youth players in the United States -- and his injury didn't heal in time for an international team to give him a look. Adding to it all, he refractured his clavicle in February just as he was beginning to return.
Almost seven months later, Bubonja, 22, sits on a couch in the UIC men's soccer office in Chicago, and talks about all that's happened to him. He's finally 100 percent. He's been through a total of nearly six months of rehab. Yes, his plans of a year ago didn't work out as he had hoped, but he's fine with that. He's back for his last season -- that's definitive -- and he's ready to close out what's been a remarkable career with a final bang.
"It's good to be back," said Bubonja, who is 6-foot-2, 200 pounds and originally from Serbia. "It was very disappointing. I was pretty much one foot out of the door from here. I was hoping to get my dream going and start a professional career.
"Injuries happen. It's a setback. I just have to perform for another year. I'm not bitter about anything that happened. Injuries happen. Life goes on."
The Flames were prepared for life to go on without Bubonja this season. They would still be competitive without him as Trask, a former assistant coach in the MLS and at collegiate powerhouse Indiana University, has turned UIC into a destination for elite players. But with Bubonja back, the Flames posses arguably the best goalkeeper in the nation, are nearly a lock to reach their fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament and could even make a run at the 2009 College Cup.
This season, like the three previous, will once again remind Trask why traveling to Serbia in 2004 to find out more about this unknown goalkeeper his assistant Sean Phillips was raving about was the smartest decision he's ever made as a coach.
"I knew the first second that I saw him training that he was everything we wanted," Trask said. "He was playing on a men's team, so he was playing with 30-year-olds, and it was like he was most mature player on the field. His understanding of, 'Should I play fast? Should I slow it down?' & His understanding of the whole game was at a level I've only seen in the MLS."
Bubonja had family in Valparaiso, Ind., he had been to Chicago before, and he wanted to live in a major city, so he committed to UIC. The Flames weren't a notable program at the time, but Bubonja was so certain that would change he even promised Trask a Final Four appearance before he left school.
So far, he's been close. As a sophomore, Bubonja helped UIC reach the Elite 8. All together, he has helped UIC to six NCAA tournament wins and has gone 36-11-17 overall with 32 clean sheets, 188 saves and a goals-against-average of 0.52. He was a semifinalist last season for the Hermann Trophy, college soccer's top award. This season he is again on the trophy's watch list, and has a true shot at becoming the first goalkeeper to win the award since Tony Meola did it in 1989.
"From the talent side of things, he's so unique in the way he plays the position compared to every goalkeeper in the country from a college standpoint, and even professional goalkeepers," said UIC teammate Ian Sarachan, son of former Fire coach Dave Sarachan. "Every day in training it's the same mentality as games.
"He is just so special as a goalkeeper you can't really compare him to anybody. I've seen Jovan do things that most keepers would never do. Whether coming out for a ball and heading it off the line, or if he's got a ball at his feet and a forward's running at him he'll cut him back. Things that field players would try, not goalkeepers."
The greatest such feat by Bubonja was against Wisconsin three seasons ago. A teammate had sent an awful back pass his way. He trapped the ball and appeared to have no options as an opponent was headed toward him.
"If he tries to kick it, the guy would slide in and kick it into the goal," Trask remembered. "Jovan took the ball and lifted it right over the guy's head. I remember the coaches from Wisconsin were going crazy. I saw them about three months later, and they go, 'We were going crazy because he had just done that, and we looked over and you were showing absolutely no emotion.' I said, 'Sometimes with him I don't know exactly why he does what he does, but I have total confidence in it.' They said that was the craziest soccer play they had ever seen."
Trask has so much confidence in his star player that whenever a game reaches a penalty shootout, he allows Bubonja to take the first kick and choose the four other teammates to join him.
In 2008, UIC found itself in such a situation in back-to-back NCAA tournament games. In both, Bubonja scored and made a final save to secure the victory.
"I'll be confident every time we go to PKs," said teammate Robert Younger, who is from England. "He's just a presence in the goal. He's intimidating. He makes that goal look small."
Sarachan said: "He's just one of those guys who has unbelievable confidence in everything he does. For a goalkeeper to step up and take the first penalty kick for us in the shootout, it's pretty interesting. You don't see that every day. The way he scores them, because he doesn't miss them much, is just as impressive."
Trask would agree with that, but of all that Bubonja has achieved at UIC in his career, he believes it will be something he did off the field that will leave his greatest trace.
"When he was going through his rehab, he didn't take the soccer program to another level, he literally took the athletic department," Trask said. "When you look at the amount of rehab work he was putting in to get back on the field to realize his individual goals, every single athlete on this campus took notice.
"I don't care what anyone says, whether it be men's basketball, women's basketball, when they looked at him they knew that kid wanted it."
At the end of the 2009 season, he may finally get it.
Scott Powers covers high school and college sports for ESPNChicago.com and can be reached at espnpowers@live.com.
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espn.go.com/chicago/story?columnist=powers_scott&id=4419554
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Bubonja readjusts goal; eyes big year
UIC goaltender looks to make the most out of tough situation
By Scott Powers
ESPNChicago.com
Archive
University of Illinois-Chicago goalkeeper Jovan Bubonja was supposed to leave for a professional soccer career after his junior season.
There wasn't going to be any weighing of options. This was fact. He was certain of it. His teammates knew it. Flames coach John Trask supported him. Everything Bubonja did, from loading up his course schedule so he could graduate early to meeting with potential agents, was in preparation for his departure following the 2008 season.
His blueprint for the future, though, would be shredded in a moment. He couldn't get out of his teammate's way; his teammate couldn't get out of his. Like that, they collided during practice. It happened just days after a NCAA Tournament win, a win Bubonja greatly influenced. They crashed, his body fell to the ground, the excruciating pain of breaking his right clavicle instantly hit him, and everything came to a halt.
"When he got injured that night, and I told him this, my thought process was not at all, 'Oh, no, what are we going to do against North Carolina in the Sweet 16?'" Trask said. "I thought to myself right then, 'Uh-oh, the MLS clubs are not going to give him Generation Adidas, and he's going to miss the international transfer window.' And sure enough, that's what happened."
UIC exited the NCAA tournament in the following round without Bubonja; he wasn't selected to Generation Adidas -- a MLS program to promote a select number of youth players in the United States -- and his injury didn't heal in time for an international team to give him a look. Adding to it all, he refractured his clavicle in February just as he was beginning to return.
Almost seven months later, Bubonja, 22, sits on a couch in the UIC men's soccer office in Chicago, and talks about all that's happened to him. He's finally 100 percent. He's been through a total of nearly six months of rehab. Yes, his plans of a year ago didn't work out as he had hoped, but he's fine with that. He's back for his last season -- that's definitive -- and he's ready to close out what's been a remarkable career with a final bang.
"It's good to be back," said Bubonja, who is 6-foot-2, 200 pounds and originally from Serbia. "It was very disappointing. I was pretty much one foot out of the door from here. I was hoping to get my dream going and start a professional career.
"Injuries happen. It's a setback. I just have to perform for another year. I'm not bitter about anything that happened. Injuries happen. Life goes on."
The Flames were prepared for life to go on without Bubonja this season. They would still be competitive without him as Trask, a former assistant coach in the MLS and at collegiate powerhouse Indiana University, has turned UIC into a destination for elite players. But with Bubonja back, the Flames posses arguably the best goalkeeper in the nation, are nearly a lock to reach their fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament and could even make a run at the 2009 College Cup.
This season, like the three previous, will once again remind Trask why traveling to Serbia in 2004 to find out more about this unknown goalkeeper his assistant Sean Phillips was raving about was the smartest decision he's ever made as a coach.
"I knew the first second that I saw him training that he was everything we wanted," Trask said. "He was playing on a men's team, so he was playing with 30-year-olds, and it was like he was most mature player on the field. His understanding of, 'Should I play fast? Should I slow it down?' & His understanding of the whole game was at a level I've only seen in the MLS."
Bubonja had family in Valparaiso, Ind., he had been to Chicago before, and he wanted to live in a major city, so he committed to UIC. The Flames weren't a notable program at the time, but Bubonja was so certain that would change he even promised Trask a Final Four appearance before he left school.
So far, he's been close. As a sophomore, Bubonja helped UIC reach the Elite 8. All together, he has helped UIC to six NCAA tournament wins and has gone 36-11-17 overall with 32 clean sheets, 188 saves and a goals-against-average of 0.52. He was a semifinalist last season for the Hermann Trophy, college soccer's top award. This season he is again on the trophy's watch list, and has a true shot at becoming the first goalkeeper to win the award since Tony Meola did it in 1989.
"From the talent side of things, he's so unique in the way he plays the position compared to every goalkeeper in the country from a college standpoint, and even professional goalkeepers," said UIC teammate Ian Sarachan, son of former Fire coach Dave Sarachan. "Every day in training it's the same mentality as games.
"He is just so special as a goalkeeper you can't really compare him to anybody. I've seen Jovan do things that most keepers would never do. Whether coming out for a ball and heading it off the line, or if he's got a ball at his feet and a forward's running at him he'll cut him back. Things that field players would try, not goalkeepers."
The greatest such feat by Bubonja was against Wisconsin three seasons ago. A teammate had sent an awful back pass his way. He trapped the ball and appeared to have no options as an opponent was headed toward him.
"If he tries to kick it, the guy would slide in and kick it into the goal," Trask remembered. "Jovan took the ball and lifted it right over the guy's head. I remember the coaches from Wisconsin were going crazy. I saw them about three months later, and they go, 'We were going crazy because he had just done that, and we looked over and you were showing absolutely no emotion.' I said, 'Sometimes with him I don't know exactly why he does what he does, but I have total confidence in it.' They said that was the craziest soccer play they had ever seen."
Trask has so much confidence in his star player that whenever a game reaches a penalty shootout, he allows Bubonja to take the first kick and choose the four other teammates to join him.
In 2008, UIC found itself in such a situation in back-to-back NCAA tournament games. In both, Bubonja scored and made a final save to secure the victory.
"I'll be confident every time we go to PKs," said teammate Robert Younger, who is from England. "He's just a presence in the goal. He's intimidating. He makes that goal look small."
Sarachan said: "He's just one of those guys who has unbelievable confidence in everything he does. For a goalkeeper to step up and take the first penalty kick for us in the shootout, it's pretty interesting. You don't see that every day. The way he scores them, because he doesn't miss them much, is just as impressive."
Trask would agree with that, but of all that Bubonja has achieved at UIC in his career, he believes it will be something he did off the field that will leave his greatest trace.
"When he was going through his rehab, he didn't take the soccer program to another level, he literally took the athletic department," Trask said. "When you look at the amount of rehab work he was putting in to get back on the field to realize his individual goals, every single athlete on this campus took notice.
"I don't care what anyone says, whether it be men's basketball, women's basketball, when they looked at him they knew that kid wanted it."
At the end of the 2009 season, he may finally get it.
Scott Powers covers high school and college sports for ESPNChicago.com and can be reached at espnpowers@live.com.
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