The Club Soccer University of Northridge, or Club Soccer Team, is not a conventional one. It meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings on the campus soccer field, while Saturdays are reserved for practice or games.

The team, whose acronym matches the university’s, is a competitive collective that plays against teams in a division. The club’s current progress can be likened to a rampaging bear in its defeat of various other soccer organizations from different Southland universities.

‘We haven’t lost’hellip; We won two and tied one,’ said club president Carlos Hernandez, Central American studies major.

The team holds an impressive record by soccer standards, including a 3-1 win over Loyola Marymount University, 5-0 over the University of California, Riverside and 1-1 against California State University, Long Beach. Although the team has one loss, they do remain at the top of the second division south in the West Coast Soccer Association.

According to Hernandez, the club was started last semester under the guidance of Joel Torres, a kinesiology major working on his masters.

Members of the club, who say they almost exclusively support the Spanish La Liga and European Champion’s league tournaments only, attended university club conferences and schedules matches with other soccer fanatics representing other schools.

Hernandez describes the current roster as around 30 strong, although the official team registers only 20 players, with members coming from countries as diverse as Honduras, Guatemala and Kuwait. Despite the roster, Hernandez says new members are always welcomed.

‘The club is open to everybody and the team is already settled, so if (new people) join, they (will) do drills with us and scrimmage,’ explained Hernandez.

Although the team’s morale is soaring from recent victories, the club is not about to rest on its laurels. They did lose a game to UC San Diego, after defeating San Diego State. ‘We were a bit tired from our practices and recent games, but we’ll get back on track,’ said Hernandez.

Team coach and biology major, Robert Iskaros, 23, or ‘Daddy’ as the rest of the team calls him, said what the team needs most is students’ support.

‘That’s all we need,’ said Iskaros, a fan of Spanish soccer giant FC Barcelona. ‘We need people to come out and support us, like cheerleaders.’

Josue Guajan, CTVA major and team member, agreed. ‘More people showing up will translate into us wanting to play even better,’ he said.

Though the the team lost to UC Irvine this past weekend, they are still confident they will make it to the regional playoffs, which begin on Nov. 1.

‘It’s in our hands, we’ve been playing well and I think we have an 80 percent chance of making it in,’ said Hernandez.

Their last game is against USC this weekend.