SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The greatest rivalry in college soccer returns to the Central Coast this weekend, as the UC Santa Barbara Men's Soccer team hosts Cal Poly in the 88^th rendition of the Blue-Green Rivalry on Saturday. The match is the first leg of the season series and will not count toward The Big West standings, but there is still plenty on the line, namely a 12-year home unbeaten run for the Gauchos against their arch rivals. In fact, Santa Barbara has only lost one Blue-Green match at Harder Stadium under head coach Tim Vom Steeg, winning 17 and drawing six.
 
LAST TIME OUT
Vom Steeg and the Gauchos will be looking for a big result to energize their season after five games without a win. The good news is that Santa Barbara's play has been better in their two most recent matches, a pair of draws, than in the three preceding defeats. At UNLV last Thursday, the Gaucho attack managed to create 27 shots, and against a strong Grand Canyon team on Sunday, Santa Barbara scored a brilliant goal, going the length of the pitch in just two passes. Against a Cal Poly team that likes to sit back and wait for mistakes, the Gauchos will look to take control of the match like they did in Las Vegas and add the finishing touch they found against the Antelopes.
 
GAUCHOS TO KNOW
Santa Barbara's goal on Sunday was thrilling not only because of how quickly the Gauchos went from their own half to celebrating the score but also because of who made it happen. Kaden Standish, who led the team in assists in 2024 and is currently tied for this year's lead, started the move and Buba Fofanah, the Santa Barbara Soccer Club alumnus and veteran transfer from Portland, finished it for his 20^th NCAA goal. In the middle, Zac Siebenlist, this year's points leader and scorer of one of the most clutch goals in Gaucho history, made the right decision to find Fofanah and give him the easy finish.
While those three are all but guaranteed to feature on Saturday, a pair of promising rookies could be in line to get their first taste of the Blue-Green Rivalry this weekend. Owen Beninga became the first Santa Barbara goalkeeper to record a shutout on his debut at UNLV, highlighted by a soaring second-half save, showing why the Gauchos see him as the goalkeeper of the future. Meanwhile, Jack Middleton is someone the Gauchos see as the midfielder of the present, but he has been sidelined by an injury. However, he has been back in training this week.
With Santa Barbara still looking for an offensive spark, eyes will be on Ocean Salari this weekend, not only because the mercurial forward provided some of the team's best attacking play at San Diego and UNLV recently. Like Luis Figo swapping Barcelona for Real Madrid, Salari joined the Gauchos from Cal Poly ahead of the 2024 season. Also like Figo, he did not score in his first rivalry appearance since the switch, though he did pick up two assists later on in his first year in Blue and Gold. A performance like the one he put up against a different team in green, Sacramento State, where he put up four shots, two on goal, and recorded an assist, would be a welcome one on Saturday.
The one man on this year's Santa Barbara roster that has scored against Cal Poly is Nicolas Willumsen, who put home the game winner in 2023's 2-0 victory.
 
SCOUTING THE MUSTANGS
Cal Poly has a turncoat of their own this year, though Andrea Pirlo or Clarence Seedorf trading Inter for AC Milan is perhaps a more apt comparison for defensive midfielder Nalu Mack. The UC Santa Barbara graduate has played in all eight games for the Mustangs, making five starts, but is yet to record a point in green. He did score in this fixture in 2023, putting home the Gauchos' second goal of a 2-0 win.
And not scoring a point would have taken some doing last Thursday, when Cal Poly recorded an eye-popping 8-0 win over Utah Tech, which they followed up with a 2-0 win at San Diego State on Sunday. Having drawn the two matches before those two wins, one of which was against then-No. 20 San Francisco, the Mustangs enter Saturday's match in their best form of the season.
Cal Poly's gameplan under their third-year coach, former Stanford assistant Oige Kennedy, is built on defense first. They are conceding an average of a goal per game and have kept a clean sheet in half of their matches so far, with goalkeeper Nick McCune bringing a .724 save percentage into Saturday. Freshman defender Tanner Casey and sophomore forward Quinn Mahoney lead the offense with three and four goals respectively.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 27. Gates will open to fans at 3 p.m. Tickets are on sale now at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets, and all UC Santa Barbara students can get in for free with their valid UCSB ID. Gaucho fans across the country can also catch the action live on ESPN+ or follow along with live stats.