Published Work

Published Work

Wel­come to a por­tion of my work that was pub­lished at The Dai­ly Cam­pus, UCon­n’s stu­dent-run news­pa­per. Below are some of my most proud work while work­ing for the news­pa­per. More of my work with The Dai­ly Cam­pus that isn’t high­light­ed on this page can be found here.

Diego Maradona: In memo­ri­am to ‘D10S’

When the com­mon debate in the soc­cer world of, “who’s the great­est play­er of all time?” comes up, many are quick to say Cris­tiano Ronal­do or Lionel Mes­si. How­ev­er, a good por­tion of fans look to the play­ers of the past, like Den­nis Bergkamp, Johan Cruyff, George Best, or Pelé. One play­er in par­tic­u­lar has been praised as the great­est by many over the decades, espe­cial­ly those from his home coun­try; that play­er being Diego Maradona. Sad­ly, on Nov. 25, the Argen­tine leg­end passed away in his home in Argenti­na from car­diac arrest. Pri­or to his untime­ly demise, Maradona was recov­er­ing from emer­gency surgery on his brain ear­li­er in the month. Read more here about the flawed genius of the game.

Men’s Hock­ey: Huskies fall in sea­son open­er, make come­back in UMass series

The 2020/21 sea­son for UConn men’s hock­ey start­ed off a bit unusu­al. The Huskies were orig­i­nal­ly set to play against Ver­mont on Nov. 20, but due to play­ers on Ver­mon­t’s team test­ing pos­i­tive for COVID-19, UConn were imme­di­ate­ly resched­uled to play No.7 UMass in a series of two games. Some tough games for sure, but the Huskies fought with every­thing they had. Read more here.

Point/Counterpoint: Can Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur be Pre­mier League title contenders?

2020 has been one hell of a year, there’s no doubt about that. Even in the Pre­mier League, there have been some crazy moments that occurred with­in the first month or so of the sea­son. Some of these include Liv­er­pool’s 7–2 beat­ing from Aston Vil­la, Ever­ton hav­ing a small stint at the top of the league and Sheffield Unit­ed win­less in the 2020/21 sea­son despite a strong start in their pro­mo­tion to the topflight last sea­son. How­ev­er, one more club has emerged on the list of crazy things to hap­pen in the Pre­mier League this sea­son. Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur, man­aged by world-renowned Jose Mour­in­ho, are at the top of the league at the time of writ­ing. In this ‘Point/Counterpoint’, a col­league and I debat­ed on one ques­tion: can Spurs be Pre­mier League title con­tenders? Read more here.

Hey Dave: Is Ansu Fati the heir to Lionel Messi?

The 2020/21 sea­son for FC Barcelona has been a bit “Mes­si” to say the least. With Argen­tine icon Lionel Mes­si spec­u­lat­ed to leave the Camp Nou in the sum­mer because of his lat­est com­ments about the club’s board, as well as his push to leave before the sea­son start­ed, many have won­dered which club he’ll move to next and who will take his spot. Barcelon­a’s youth acad­e­my, ‘La Masia’, used to show­case many of its prospects in the senior team, includ­ing Xavi, Car­les Puy­ol and Ger­ard Pique, to name a few, and was the pride of the club. Nowa­days, it’s not; and the play­ers they pro­duce are bleak. How­ev­er, one has stood out to the point that they’ve been trust­ed to play in the senior team as a young play­er. Ansu Fati has been the favorite of many Cules, and in this col­umn, I explain why, and why he’s the right per­son to take Mes­si’s spot. Read more here.

From the Cap­i­tal: Hart­ford fall to Saint Louis in quarterfinals

Still in its infan­cy, Hart­ford Ath­let­ic pushed through a sea­son unlike any oth­er. Because COVID-19 delayed the league’s start of the sea­son for a major­i­ty of clubs to mid-July, the sea­son was played out more like a tour­na­ment when it returned. If it were the Hart­ford Ath­let­ic squad of its 2019 inau­gur­al sea­son, the club like­ly would­n’t have seen any glimpse of hope in mak­ing the play­offs. How­ev­er, the team dras­ti­cal­ly changed going into the 2020 sea­son in a very good way. Being placed in a group with the Pitts­burgh River­hounds, who were the most dif­fi­cult team of the group, the club man­aged to fin­ish top of the group and qual­i­fy for its first-ever play­off tour­na­ment at home. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for them, things did­n’t work out their way when they host­ed Saint Louis FC at Dil­lon Sta­di­um. Read more here.

Col­umn: Zla­tan Ibrahi­mović is a Ques­tion­able Soc­cer Player

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Zla­tan Ibrahi­mović (@iamzlatanibrahimovic)

When peo­ple talk about the great­est soc­cer play­ers of all time, many will say Péle, Diego Maradona, Lionel Mes­si and Cris­tiano Ronal­do. How­ev­er, there are some who say Swedish icon Zla­tan Ibrahi­mović is one of the greatest.

Zla­tan has played for many clubs through­out his career so far, includ­ing Ajax, FC Barcelona, Inter Milan and LA Galaxy. Ibrahi­mović doesn’t seem to show any signs of end­ing his career soon, despite being 38. He cur­rent­ly plays for AC Milan for the third time in his career, how­ev­er at the time of the pub­lished arti­cle he had left LA Galaxy.

Pri­or to his depar­ture from the Los Ange­les club, Zla­tan became a key play­er to the team; he even scored on his debut as well as his 500th career goal. How­ev­er, his depar­ture was more and more inevitable dur­ing his time in Los Ange­les, espe­cial­ly when they lost to their rival club LAFC in the MLS Cup quar­ter­fi­nal. Read the full arti­cle here.

Wom­en’s Lacrosse Note­book: Wat­son scores six in sea­son opener

The UConn women’s lacrosse team start­ed off its sea­son with an explo­sive 19–12 vic­to­ry at home on Wednes­day. They were led by mid­field­er Syd­ney Wat­son, who had six goals in the vic­to­ry. Pho­to by Eric Wang // The Dai­ly Campus

Last sea­son, the UConn wom­en’s lacrosse team’s over­all record was 3–14 (1–4 The Amer­i­can) and were in fifth place in the con­fer­ence, right above East Car­oli­na who went 5–12 and lost all five of its con­fer­ence games. Due to their poor record, the Huskies did not qual­i­fy for the post­sea­son tournament.

But the team from last sea­son was much dif­fer­ent from the cur­rent squad. UConn lost sev­en seniors, with many fresh­men fill­ing the void. While they did­n’t have much expe­ri­ence in col­le­giate lacrosse, that isn’t to say mid­field­ers Made­lyn George and Rylee Brown did­n’t play key roles in their first match at home against Fairfield.

But the true high­light of the Huskies’ sea­son open­er was junior mid­field­er Syd­ney Wat­son, who explod­ed on the field and net­ted six goals. Read the full arti­cle here.

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