Will The Goals Come for Syracuse Men’s Soccer?

By Adam Gotkin | @adam_gotkin

All season long, the big issue for Syracuse Men’s Soccer has been an inability to finish in the final third. The Orange rank highly nationally in shots per game. But, the issue is that those shots are rarely on goal. SU has the second-worst shot accuracy (percentage of shots that are on goal) in the country, ahead of only Boston College.

A stat that would seem to counteract that though is that the Orange have the second most corner kicks per game in the country, behind Akron. So, the ‘Cuse rarely get shots on goal, but when it does they go out for corner kicks.

To score goals though, the Orange have to be more successful on those corner kicks. Josh Belluz is 6’6, yet only has one goal, and that came all the way back in August. SU needs to find a way to have players like Belluz score goals because it doesn’t have a consistent goal scorer.

The leading scorer for the Orange is Lorenzo Boselli with just five. The Italian hasn’t even scored since the Pitt game over a month ago. Jeorgio Kocevski has just one goal, Nick Kaloukian has just three, and Felipe D’Agostini has just three. The player with the second most goals is a defender, Gabriel Mikina who you wouldn’t expect to be a big goal scorer.

If Syracuse wants to get back to the level it was at last year, the Orange need one of those players to step up. The holes of Nathan Opoku and Levante Johnson have never looked bigger. After Giona Leibold’s injury, no one stood up to be that second goalscorer. No one really has stood up to become the top goal scorer.

The team continues to say that the goals will come, it just takes time. But, time is running out. Friday is the last game of the regular season, then it is win or go home. The possibility is there that SU figures it all out in the next week and makes a deep run. This team has all of the talent in the world. They just have to put it all together and get it done when it matters.