Zavaleta earns Big Ten honors, scores team-leading 8 goals

Eriq Zavaleta celebrated his first career goal with a cartwheel.

At least, he tried.

It was roughly 19 minutes into his first career home game at Jerry Yeagley Field. The freshman forward got the ball off a cross. His kick found the strings of the goal, and Zavaleta cheered as he attempted to fling his feet above his head in his cartwheel celebration.

The defender-turned-forward wasn’t used to celebrations. He wasn’t used to scoring goals, either. He stopped them. So when the moment came to celebrate, Zavaleta said he messed it up.

“Yeah, my cartwheel,” Zavaleta said. “Or my lack thereof ...”

Since that first game, Zavaleta has earned two Big Ten Player of the Week awards and has scored eight goals, making him the first IU freshman to score eight or more goals since Matt Fundenberger scored 13 goals in 1997. He’s capitalized on those opportunities to try more celebrations, from directing the band to snorkeling behind the boards.

But his uncle, Chivas USA assistant coach Greg Vanney, said he’s surprised his nephew, the young teenager who spent close to a year training with him as a defender, has any goals in the record book.

“To be honest, I didn’t envision him as a forward,” Vanney said. “In a way, I thought (center back) was his best position, and I still do think his best position is probably as a center back.

“He’s a very intelligent player. He reads the game. He’s good at organizing. I’m just not convinced yet, honestly, that he’s a forward.”

Neither was Zavaleta’s U20 Columbus Crew assistant coach, Jeremy Parkins, until the second game of the team’s playoff run to the USL Super-20 championship.

“We knew he had played forward in the past, and we had him as a defender,” Parkins said. “We thought we needed to generate some more offense in the game.”

The coaches decided to play Zavaleta up top.

“We weren’t sure what he was going to do because we just hadn’t seen him there before,” Parkins said.

Within 15 minutes, Zavaleta had a goal and an assist.

“He changed that game,” Parkins said. “From that point forward, he played as our forward. He was somebody we counted on.”

The team depended on its 6-foot-1-inch, 185-pound forward to lead it to a repeat national title, and he delivered.

“Playing both positions definitely helps,” Zavaleta said. “You kind of know how to make, runs knowing as a defender what you wouldn’t want a forward to do.”

Born into a soccer family with a father and uncle who are in the UCLA Hall of Fame and spent significant time playing in the MLS, Zavaleta grew up with a soccer ball at his feet.

“When I was in second or third grade, I always dribbled a soccer ball around the house, and I was dribbling it up the stairs,” he said. “I ended up tripping over the ball and breaking my arm because I would not give the soccer ball up.”

As a teenager, he spent time playing for the Real Salt Lake, Chivas USA and Columbus Crew academy teams. He spent one year with the guidance of his uncle.
For now, though, Zavaleta’s still trying to figure out his next goal celebration.

“I can’t predict,” he said. “Every game’s different, but I’ll predict that I’ll score enough goals for us to win more games, for sure.”

The freshman forward said the cartwheel will come back. His uncle laughed when he heard the news, saying his nephew should enjoy the moment of glory, even if he doesn’t see Zavaleta as the “gymnastics kind of kid.”

“Here’s the golden ticket for him to go up front, to not be stuck in the defending all the time,” Vanney said. “After being a defender, you almost don’t know what to do at times, especially if you’ve been in the back for so long. So, you can definitely make a mess out of the celebration if it’s not something you’re used to doing all the time.”

But Zavaleta is going to score until he gets that cartwheel right.

“I came here to bring the tradition back and win some national championships,” Zavaleta said. “In our program, not winning it in the last 10 or so years is something that we don’t like. We like winning national championships here.”