After 49 minutes at Ludwig Field, the home crowd hadn’t had much to cheer about as No. 8 Maryland men’s soccer faced No. 7 Wisconsin in the Terps’ third top ten matchup of the season.
A Maryland free kick brought the crowd back to life, Ljubomir Popovic sent in the ball over a Badgers defender and onto the head of a diving Said El Eyssami, who nodded home the first goal of the game. El Eyssami, nearly parallel with the turf, struck Popovic’s pass well enough to score his fourth of the year.
El Eyssami
was the lone goal scorer, leading the Terps to a grueling 1-0 victory over the Badgers.
Maryland’s defense showed vast improvement from its previous dismantling against Northwestern. Wisconsin entered the match with the sixth-best goal differential in college soccer at +17 but was held to five shots on goal in Laurin Mack’s second shutout of the season.
“Wisconsin is a resilient, tough team,” said head coach Sasho Cirovski. “. . . This was just a wonderful response to the last game and it’s what we wanted.”
Overall, the starting lineup has been a question mark all season for the Terps — they’ve dealt with injuries in every game thus far. While Maryland has kept the same quartet of starting defenders together for the last four games, on Friday, it remained without starting midfielders Leon Koehl and Henry Bernstein.
Instead, the starting eleven included the first Maryland appearance for the newly signed Luka Juricic. Juricic is a freshman midfielder from Georgetown, Ontario, with experience playing for the Croatia U19 and Canada U20 national teams.
“Luka Juricic was an incredible performance for someone who just joined our team over the last 10 days and had three practices,” said Cirovski. “I’m just proud of the maturity that he showed coming into our team.”
The Terps had their best scoring chance in the first minute of the game. Albi Ndrenika came streaking down the right side of the field before being tripped up right outside the box. Popovic delivered a strong shot on the free kick, but Wisconsin’s goalkeeper Judewellin Michel made the save look easy.
Rocket Ritarita has had a slow start to the season, producing just two points and no goals through six games. Ritarita showed the most flash in the first half for the Terps’ attack, nearly scoring from the right side of the box in the 21st minute. Michel made another poised save but couldn’t control the ball, leaving a rebound chance for the Terps, but no one was there.
Following the El Eyssami goal, physical play between the Terps and Badgers led to a trio of yellow cards on Maryland. El Eyssami, Lilian Fichelle and Franklin Affanyi were all booked in a span of three minutes. The physicality continued throughout the remainder of the game with both teams and coaching staffs becoming increasingly frustrated with the officiating.
The Terps were able to stay composed for the final 20 minutes of the game, preventing the Badgers from dangerous scoring chances and continuing to dominate the possession game. That led them to their first Big Ten victory of the season and a pleasant week of practice leading up to a Sep. 25 home tilt against UCLA.
Three things to know
1. Game winner. El Eyssami’s goal was his third game-winning goal of the season. He earned the game-winner in his debut against Pitt, the Terps’ duel against Georgetown and tonight against Wisconsin. El Eyssami’s goal also propelled him to the team scoring lead, with his four goals ahead of Rodrigo Neri.
“That’s one of my best qualities: just being near the goal and pushing it for the team,” said El Eyssami. “The goal was a team effort . . . Rodrigo got the foul and then a beautiful cross from [Popovic], so I had to score it.”
2. Missing the mark(ie). Markie Hrvojevic, Wisconsin’s leader in goals, points and shots on goal, was silenced against the Terps, putting up zeros across the board. Hrvojevic had logged a shot on goal in every game before the Badgers’ loss to the Terps.
3. And it was all yellow. The Terps received five yellow cards in Friday’s game, which was the same amount they have been called for the entire season. The last time the Terps were called for five or more yellow cards in a game was their 2024 loss to Rutgers.
