ORLANDO, Fla. – The No. 13 UCF men's soccer team dropped its season opener by a score of 4-0 to FIU on Thursday night.
"Obviously the outcome is disappointing. The performance is disappointing," said UCF head coach Scott Calabrese. "I felt like we really didn't have our rhythm in terms of what we typically do. This was a case where we had too many touches or we made the wrong choice, when you do that in the way we play you're pretty open and that's where FIU started to get some of their chances."
The Panthers scored early as they capitalized on a giveaway in front of the UCF net in the fourth minute. Rasmus Tobinski fired a shot at Knights keeper Matt Douglass who made the initial save but couldn't stop the rebound.
FIU doubled its lead in the 34th minute as Bernardo Dos Santos Monteiro found the back of the net via a Philip Hilderbrant feed. The pass was curled in from the right side and finished off with a nifty shot just inside the right post from just inside the 18-yard box.
The Knights trailed in shots 10-7 at the break with Douglass making four saves in the first frame. UCF in 4-3 in corners. The first half was a chippy one as five yellow cards were handed out with four of them going to FIU. A total of 16 fouls occurred in the first 45 with the Panthers taking committing nine of them.
UCF had a fantastic chance out of the break in the 47th minute as Alessandro Campoy got a great header on target but it was turned aside by FIU keeper Grant Makela, who went on to make four saves on the evening.
The Panthers added another goal on the scoreboard in the 67th minute as David Garcia was able to get a head on a curling free kick in front from Matias Barraza.
The 79th minute saw Caleb Franke earn his second yellow card of the match, resulting in a red card and sending him off for the remainder of the match, leaving the Black and Gold down a man.
FIU collected their fourth goal of the contest as Stephen Afrifa tucked one home in the 84th minute on a virtual breakaway to seal the 4-0 victory.
The ref's cards weren't done though as a skirmish near midfield in the 87th minute resulted in two red cards, one for FIU's Juan Pablo Leano and the other for UCF's Gianluca Arcangeli.
When the final whistle blew, a total of 11 cards had been shown and 29 fouls committed, with FIU contributing 20 to that tally.
UP NEXT
The Knights return to action on Sunday as they host UNF at the UCF Soccer Complex at 6 p.m.
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