Maryland men’s soccer coach Sasho Cirvoski has taken his program from an underwhelming 2024 season to a No. 1 national ranking in just one year.
The Terps closed out the regular season on Nov. 7 with a 4-3 win at Michigan State to improve to 12-0-3. Maryland earned the No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and will host North Carolina on Sunday, Nov. 23 at Ludwig Field.
“I’m excited about the team we have this year,” Cirvoski said on Glenn Clark Radio Nov. 4. “It’s just a wonderful team to coach, very mature, obviously a lot of talent and I think we’re a contender again.”
Just three or four days into the preseason, Cirvoski — who has been at Maryland since 1993 — sat down with his staff and told them this team was a real contender. This Terps had all the right pieces to him — chemistry, culture, competitiveness, honesty and humility.
Maryland’s first two matches of the season, against two elite programs in Wake Forest and Georgetown, served as affirmation that the roster was indeed capable of making it far this year. Although lightning brought the Wake Forest match to an early end and the Georgetown match was just a 1-0 win, these were teams that the Terps had lost to in recent seasons.
Cirovski felt something different this time around.
“The first half at Wake this year, we’re up 1-0 and then the game got called off due to lightning,” Cirovski said. “It wasn’t a moral victory, but it was a convincing performance that said, ‘OK guys, that’s not an easy place to open up and play. They were the ACC champs, they were in the quarterfinals. And we played really well.'”
Cirvoski was cautious about getting too excited about regular-season domination considering his 2016 run with the Terps, a whopping 18-1-2 season that ended in a disappointing second-round NCAA Tournament exit against Providence. He has learned from such defeats, keeping himself and his team hungry and humble so they keep up the form the Terps have shown this year.
Cirovski also referenced the 2018 Terps team that finished the regular season barely over .500 but could not stop winning once the experienced players who were out with injuries came back for the postseason. That year, Maryland crushed the NCAA Tournament and won it all — without allowing a single goal to opposing teams.
“Right now, we’ve got really good depth and I see the similarity [with the 2018 team] of your juniors and seniors on a mission,” Cirovski said.
Diving into the roster, Cirvoski was asked about how German goalkeeper Laurin Mack improved so much in just a year. The coach said there was a lot going on that outside observers didn’t know about Mack, who came from a different country to compete.
Mack has been the Big Ten Goalkeeper of the Week three times just in this season alone. He has a 0.64 goals-against average with eight clean sheets, five more than the year before.
“He’s a goalkeeper and communication is a very important part of it, and his English was not great when he first got here,” Cirvoski said. “He’d have to think about what he said and translate it in his head. Now it’s second nature. Now his ability to organize and communicate is much better.”
Cirvoski also shouted out several locals as positive influences on the team, including Baltimore native Jace Clark, Towson native Matias De Jesus (Loyola Blakefield) and Mount Airy native Brian St. Martin (Mount Saint Joseph).
“A lot of good Maryland influence, we have a lot of international influence, it’s just a really good locker room,” Cirovski said.
For more from Cirvoski, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Maryland Athletics
Originally published Nov. 12, 2025. Updated Nov. 21, 2025.