FC Tucson’s 2017 exhibition season consisted of one match against, among others, international stars Shaun Wright-Phillips and Omar Bravo.
This weekend’s games won’t include as many household names, but matter more. Much more.
The Men in Black will kick off their 2017 season with a pair of matches against the BYU Cougars. Friday and Saturday’s matches both start at 7 p.m.
Friday’s match marks the official start of Jon Pearlman’s tenure with FC Tucson. The club’s longtime general manager took over as coach this offseason, when Rick Schantz left for become an assistant coach for Phoenix Rising FC. Schantz was elevated to Rising’s head coach last month, when Frank Yallop unexpectedly resigned. The team traveled to Tucson last weekend for an exhibition with both FC Tucson and the UA men’s club soccer team. Playing one half apiece, FC Tucson and the UA men earned draws with their Phoenix foes.
People are also reading…
Pearlman called his team’s 1-1 half “just a very brave performance.”
“Getting a goal is what we wanted to see happen,” he said. “A draw is a good result for us.”
More will be expected in USL Premier Development League play. The club was recently ranked third among USL PDL Western Conference teams.
FC Tucson returns a handful of key players from last year’s team, which went undefeated on the road and earned a No. 1 Western Conference seed. Defenders Kalem Scott and Gordon Hall, midfielder Tate Schmitt and forward Afonso Pinhiero will have even more responsibility in 2017.
FC Tucson’s regular season runs through July.
“I wouldn’t feel satisfied,” Pearlman said in a new release, “if we didn’t make it any further than last year.”
