Marquette Men’s Soccer Fights For A Season Opening Scoreless Draw

When Justin Milovanov saw his 11th minute yellow card upgraded to a red on video review, it did not feel like a fun time for Marquette men’s soccer in their season opener against Bradley on Thursday evening. Milovanov was one of the more notable returning players from last season, and he found himself wearing the captain’s armband as the game got started at Valley Fields.

On top of that, Marquette had already allowed two shots to Bradley and hadn’t attempted one yet themselves. That’s really not what you want when you drop to 10 men for the remaining 79 minutes of action.

And yet, through it all, Marquette ended up dragging out a 0-0 draw with Bradley. I doubt head coach David Korn is thrilled about the result in the big picture, but his team ended losing the shots battle 11-6 at the end of 90 minutes. That’s not a terrible margin when you play a heavy majority of the match with 10 men, and Gabriel Mirand and Mateo Stoka created several interesting opportunities late. Miranda hit the post from about 10 feet out at a 45 degree angle late in the second half, and Stoka drew several fouls that created dangerous free kicks from Marquette. He wasn’t quite able to draw one last foul in the final minute, as he got trampled from behind in the box, but there was no call live and even VAR didn’t change the opinion of the officials.

Hard to draw any solid conclusions from this match as far as what Marquette looks like this season, but credit to them for toughing out a shutout at the very least.

UP NEXT: Marquette will host North Florida on Sunday, with first kick set for 1pm Central time at Valley Fields and on ESPN+. Justin Milovanov will be suspended for that match by rule, but at least MU gets to put 11 guys on the field. UNF is currently up 1-0 in the first half in Madison against Wisconsin in their first match of the season.

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