Tractors Soccer Holds Strong, Aim for League Championship

The stands remained empty except for one person sitting on the visitor’s side when soccer hosted Romulus on Monday night. But in no way should that be an indication of how well the team plays.

In fact, it’s pretty darn good–one of the best in the Western Wayne Athletic Conference. And it’s the missing fans that are losing out on seeing some of the area’s top talent.

Maybe a league championship will put some seats in the stands. It might not be that far off.

With less than two weeks remaining in the season, the Tractors have pulled their way to a 6-2-2 record and are eying the league championship. Only stands in Fordson’s way.

Dearborn was the only black mark on the Tractors’ record, by way of a 2-1 loss. However, a tough 1-0 loss to power team Garden City on Wednesday brought Fordson's overall losses to two.

Although he won’t admit it, third-year varsity head coach Samir Bazzi, with more than 25 years of playing and coaching professionally, is the main reason for the team’s success. Even with losing six starters to graduation last year, he has managed to find success this season with a young team, consisting of five seniors, 10 juniors and three sophomores. And he occasionally calls up a few junior varsity players to log some minutes.

“Every year you have different players, different teams and it’s not easy to work to make a team–especially when last year we lost six players,” Bazzi said. “We try to do our best, you know. We have a couple of players that understand the game of soccer; the rest are still learning. So far, they’ve done a good job. Every game they get better.”

Bazzi relies heavily on his five senior returners and a junior from a nearly perfect season last year, losing only one game to Dearborn High.

Senior defender Moussa Diallo, a possible college prospect, leads the pack.

“He is a leader," Bazzi said. “He has good discipline, attitude and sportsmanship; he’s real professional. I’m trying to work with him on maybe getting a scholarship to Detroit Mercy.”

Joining Diallo in the backfield are seniors Ibrahim Magrad and Adam Yazback. Holding the middle is senior center mid Motasem Mansoub, and heading the attack is senior Husein Nasser. Guarding the posts is Mohamed Riz, returning as a junior.

Rounding out the defense are juniors Hamza Mokbil, Ahmad Chraim, and Wejdan Nasser and sophomore Ahmad Saad.

Defense is the key right now for the young team, according to Diallo.

“If you have defense, you can build it up from there to the midfield and move up to the forwards,” he said. “But, if you don’t have good defense, even if you can score, the other team can turn it back around on you and it will be nothing for them to score.”

The junior midfield class includes Mohamed Saleh, Hussein Bazzi and Moussa Hachem. Junior Hussam Ateyia plays both defense and midfield as needed. Sophomores Ahmad Nabulsi and Abdulnasser Nasser also help out in the middle.

Junior forwards Ali Alhaj and Muad Ali join Husein Nasser up front.

With any new and especially young team with different personalities, it’s important to keep players in line and the focus on team play, according to Bazzi.

“We have to work on discipline–this is very important,” he said. “We have to work on keeping everything clean and we have to learn in sports that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. So far we do an excellent job.”

“We are trying to build a good program at Fordson,” added junior varsity coach Wissam Saab. “We are trying to do our best now. In the future we will have real strong team. We are trying to change the attitude of the team with a better reputation and better discipline.”

Saab, in just his second year of coaching, has an undefeated squad.  Not bad for a biology teacher.

“He knows the game of soccer and that’s why we work so well together,” Bazzi said of his assistant coach. “We will work together for a long time.”

Bazzi borrows players from Saab’s undefeated squad to fill holes and to let the younger players notch some experience. Sophomore midfielders Hassan Boussi and Tarek Ahmad and freshman midfielder/forward Saeed Tawil have already logged significant minutes, according to Saab.

With the Tractors firing on all cylinders right now, they will make an attempt to dethrone Dearborn as WWAC champs, and take a stab at districts, too. They'll have their rematch on the road with the Pioneers on Monday.

It’s no small order, but Diallo thinks it can be done.

“If we play every team like they are the best, we can beat them,” he said.  “We just need to play our game.”