SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — The UC Santa Barbara Men's Soccer team celebrates its 60^th year in 2026, and the Gauchos will get that anniversary campaign underway on Friday, Aug. 21 by playing an opponent they have not beaten since the turn of the century: the San Jose State Spartans. Both blue-and-gold-clad squads reached but fell in their respective conference championship games in 2025, Santa Barbara doing it as hosts after claiming The Big West Regular Season title while San Jose State upset the Western Athletic Conference's top seed, California Baptist, in a semifinal thriller before falling to a Grand Canyon squad that made it all the way to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Now both preseason favorites to claim their respective conference crowns in 2026, the Spartans and Gauchos look to make good on their preseason promise and start their season with a victory. As of their last get-together in 2003, each team had 14 wins over the other, with just a solitary draw.
 
TICKETS
Season and single-game tickets for all 10 of UC Santa Barbara Men's Soccer's home matches are on sale now! The Gauchos' home slate includes visits from three teams that appear in the national preseason top 25, as well as three Big West contests. Santa Barbara was The Big West Regular Season Champion in 2025 and has hosted The Big West Championship Final in each of the last two seasons, and fans can be at Harder Stadium for every game as the Gauchos hunt another conference title, with season tickets starting at $125.
 
JUNIOR GAUCHOS
UC Santa Barbara's Junior Gauchos program returns for 2026, giving kids 12 and younger access to every UC Santa Barbara home soccer, volleyball and basketball game, plus special experiences and game day benefits. For more information, visit ucsbgauchos.com/JuniorGauchos.
 
PROMOTIONS
The Gaucho Men's Soccer program is proud to once again celebrate and welcome members of the Santa Barbara community to Harder Stadium all season long. Friday night's match is Non-Profit and Faith Night, as UC Santa Barbara invites members of local faith groups and the people who do great work with local non-profit organizations to enjoy the match with free tickets. For more information on Non-Profit & Faith Night and to see the full list of theme nights, visit ucsbgauchos.com/MSOC_Themes.
 
Additionally, all fans in attendance on Friday night can pick up UC Santa Barbara's 2026 Men's Soccer schedule in poster and magnet form and stick around postgame for an autograph session with Gaucho student-athletes.
 
SCOUTING THE SPARTANS
San Jose State went 12-4-4 in 2025 and 3-2-2 in their final WAC campaign, routing San Diego State in the quarterfinals and hanging on in overtime to upset CBU in the semifinals before Grand Canyon brought their season to an end. Add those tournament results to a regular-season win over CBU and impressive draws with both Grand Canyon and then-No. 3 Stanford, and the Spartans' position as co-favorites alongside GCU in the new Mountain West makes plenty of sense.
 
San Jose State placed four student-athletes on the United Soccer Coaches All-Far West Region team last season but do not return any of them for 2026, and they retain only midfielder Fernando Duarte from their group of five All-WAC honorees last season. Instead, it is a next-man-up approach for the Spartans and their three Mountain West Watch List selections. Midfielder Angel Fernandez and defender Ruben Flores-Thomas have both been Spartans since 2023 but have just Flores-Thomas' WAC Defensive Player of the Week honor as the only award between the two of them. Goalkeeper Ronin Axelson has been with the team a year longer but has just 803 minutes, having sat behind All-Far West Region netminder Edgar Guerra last season.
 
Despite their high-profile exits, the Spartans retain a majority of last year's squad, with 18 returners to 11 departures. Nine of their 12 newcomers are freshmen, with the other three arriving from junior colleges. Nine of the 12 newcomers (and 25 of the 30-man roster) are from California, with the out-of-staters hailing from Washington, England, France, Mexico and Japan.
 
GET TO KNOW THE GAUCHOS
UC Santa Barbara retains 14 student-athletes from the roster that took them to a second consecutive Big West Championship Final in 2025, though the return of left wing back Peleg Brown is more like a new addition after he missed all of last season with an injury. The Gauchos also have 14 true newcomers on the squad for 2026, including marquee transfers Donovan Sessoms, Viggo Gustavsson and Kalle Rahbek. Sessoms has menaced The Big West with Sacramento State for the last two seasons and was named to the United Soccer Coaches Forwards to Watch List ahead of the 2026 campaign. TopDrawerSoccer also placed him at No. 88 on their Preseason Top 100 list. Gustavsson is coming off a great season at Grand Canyon, helping the Antelopes win the WAC Championship and reach the NCAA Sweet 16. He was named to the WAC All-Tournament Team as a defender and already has a bond with center-back partner Calle Mollerberg, as the two swedes grew up in AIK Stockholm's academy system together. The Gauchos' other Kalle, Rahbek, will wear the armband as a co-captain alongside the teammate with whom he (almost) shares a name and comes to Santa Barbara after earning All-Southern Conference First Team honors at Wofford. He piqued the Gauchos' interest with his performance against Wake Forest, against whom he scored the Terriers' opening goal.
 
Also among the new faces are Tobi Gerber, a midfielder from Germany by way of Northeast Community College in Nebraska, and wing back Simone Ferrieri, an Italian who comes to Santa Barbara having most recently played in fourth-tier Serie D, as well as Saint Mary's transfer David Ruy to bolster the goalkeeping corps. Then there are the freshmen. Defensive midfielder Ty Branigan has drawn comparisons to Manu Duah, who San Diego FC selected first overall in the 2024 Major League Soccer SuperDraft, and fellow midfielder Martin Odegaard Oesthagen has the name for it if nothing else, sharing a hometown, position and skillset with the current Arsenal and Norway captain. Colorado's Jakob Methvin scored an impressive solo goal from his left back position during the Blue-Gold Scrimmage, and striker Gunnar Franke brings experience from youth academies in Sweden, Spain and England to Santa Barbara. Defender Matteo Crisera and midfielders Gavin Sampognaro, Nate Riner and Brennan Mulholland round out the freshman class.
 
On top of their incoming talent, the Gauchos also return six of their eight All-Big West honorees from 2025, including Defensive Player of the Year Mollerberg and Freshman of the Year Steinar Bjornsson. Mollerberg is one of three Santa Barbara student-athletes to earn Preseason All-Big West honors entering 2026, alongside Kaden Standish and Sessoms. Mollerberg also earned a spot on the United Soccer Coaches Defenders to Watch List, ranked 55^th in the TopDrawerSoccer Preseason Top 100 and is one of 27 men on the shortlist for the Hermann Trophy, the National Player of the Year award. Standish and Mollerberg were both All-Big West First Team selections last season, as was Zac Siebenlist, who is the team's top returning goal-scorer. Goalkeeper Owen Beninga was an All-Big West Second Team honoree after his breakout rookie campaign, and he enters this season as the Gauchos' first choice between the posts, as well as just one of eight on the United Soccer Coaches Goalkeepers to Watch List. Ahead of him, 2025 All-Big West Honorable Mention Drew Kaminenski joins Mollerberg and Gustavsson to form a formidable back three, with sophomore Cole Harris a reliable option to deputize for any of them. Completing the defensive group, Colby Renton adds to the wing-back rotation along with Brown, Ferrieri and Methvin, and Dylan Hotaling returns to the goalkeepers' union. Jack Middleton and Ethan Senter both provide a dose of energy and experience in the midfield, and sophomore forwards Owen Wall and Mateos Carvalho will be hungry to turn the promise they showed as rookies into results and extended playing time in year two.
 
COMING UP THIS SEASON
San Jose State is the first of two Mountain West opponents that Santa Barbara will face in their 2026 regular season, with a visit to the conference's other co-favorite, No. 21 Grand Canyon, scheduled for Sept. 12. But first, the Gauchos will conclude their season-opening homestand next week by hosting a pair of ranked opponents: No. 17 Marshall on Aug. 27 and No. 18 San Diego on Aug. 31.
 
Santa Barbara's final home matches before conference play begins see them host San Diego State on Sept. 17 and No. 19 Oregon State on Sept. 20. As part of a scheduling agreement with the Pac-12, The Big West conference season is now only six games long, with the Gauchos hosting Sacramento State on Sept. 30, Utah Valley on Oct. 3 and CSUN on Oct. 31. Santa Barbara will also host a pair of conference crossover contests against Pac-12 members, welcoming Cal Poly on Oct. 10 and California Baptist on Oct. 21.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
Friday's Opening Night match will kick off at 7 p.m. from Harder Stadium and will be broadcast live on ESPN+. Season and single-game tickets for all of the Gauchos' home matches are on sale now at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets or by calling the ticket office at (805) 893-UCSB(8272).