Over the course of any regular season, in any sport, there are games that have more at stake than others — to SFU’s men’s soccer team — such a game was played last week.
It had all the makings of a classic: the second-last game of the season, and SFU’s final home game of the year, against their bitter Seattle Pacific rivals — the only team to have defeated the Clan this season.
Not to mention, the match was for all the marbles. A Clan victory meant a fourth-straight Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship, and a spot in the national tournament. A loss, and SFU would’ve needed a lot of luck to earn those honours.
“It was just perfect,” says junior midfielder Jovan Blagojevic, a man who would factor in quite significantly later in the game. “It was like a movie; you couldn’t have written it any better. The rivalry we have between each other is so strong, and them having beat us before, playing for the GNAC title . . . we were excited.”
Few games can live up to that kind of hype. This one did.
It wasn’t a barnburner — far from it, in fact. Instead, it was a close game that kept fans on the edge of their seats, despite being a scoreless affair heading into Golden Goal overtime.
“It was such a tight game,” says Blagojevic. “I think we were carrying the play a little bit, but there were tense moments both ways.” A Seattle Pacific corner kick, pushed just wide with about five minutes to play in regulation, comes to mind.
“Going into overtime, everyone on our team was holding our breath as much as the fans were. We didn’t think about it too much. We knew we just had to get it done.”
And that’s where Blagojevic comes in.
Freshman Robert Hyams lined up for a Clan free kick, 30 yards from the Falcons’ goal. He had the option to pass down low to sophomore Ryan Dhillon and potentially take a two-on-one to the net. He didn’t take it.
Instead, he laid a perfect cross into the box — three seconds and a couple of wild bounces later, Blagojevic tapped it in. Clan win. Another three seconds later, he was at the bottom of a team-wide dog pile.
“It seemed like the longest two, three seconds of my life,” he says. “It was a beautiful cross, [senior forward Carlo] Basso got his head on it and it went off the post — I thought it was going in originally — and eventually popped right back out to me. As Golden Goals go, it was probably the easiest I could imagine.” But he’ll take it.
“The best thing that’s ever happened to me in my career,” he says, with an ear-to-ear grin.
Better than making the Final Four of the the NCAA Division II tournament last year?
“Individually,” he clarifies. “I almost died; I couldn’t breathe at the bottom of the pile. Like, ‘Thanks, but get off me,’” he laughs. “It was pretty cool.”
But Blagojevic knows his work and his team’s, is far from done.
“We’ll call this season a success if we can win the National Championship,” he says. “It’s nice winning the GNAC; we completed one of our goals. And of course we would’ve wanted an undefeated season, but we won the conference, and you’ve got to be happy with that. But every year we have the ambition of winning the National Championship, and that’s our ultimate goal.”
The Clan came close last year, falling short in the Final Four.
“Obviously it was upsetting to get so close and lose. But in a way, it might’ve helped us, it maybe showed we need to push a little harder, do a little more,” says Blagojevic. “We’re ready for whatever’s coming at us.”
So when Nationals begin, for a team that preaches taking things one game at a time, Blagojevic’s goal against the Falcons will matter little.
But for a day, or maybe a week, Blagojevic is SFU’s golden boy, his goal having sent his team to the national competition, as well as earning the Clan a fourth consecutive conference title.
Pretty cool, indeed.
