As his name and hometown were announced in front of a packed crowd at Ludwig Field before the Big Ten tournament semifinal on Nov. 12, Albi Ndrenika stepped forward and pounded the “M” on his chest.

Ndrenika grew up in Olney and had an opportunity to join the D.C. United Academy, a track that could have pushed him toward a professional career in Major League Soccer instead of playing in the NCAA. But Ndrenika wanted to play for the University of Maryland.

“Being able to represent the state you love, the state you live in with guys you grew up with, makes it so much more special,” said Ndrenika, a senior forward who earned All-Big Ten second-team honors this season. “And then, to celebrate with the local fans and everything, it’s unmatched.”

That pride is why coach Sasho Cirovski focuses on recruiting locally. While other NCAA men’s soccer teams are filling their rosters with international players, Maryland has struck a balance. This year’s team has nine players from Maryland, the most since 2019.

Cirovski rounded out his roster with 13 players from outside the U.S. But he’s found success by building a roster mixing local and international players, which is at odds with other top teams in the country. The Terps finished the regular season undefeated for the first time since 2016, and Cirovski doesn’t plan on changing that mixture.

Maryland is the No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament and received a first-round bye. The Terps will play the winner of North Carolina and North Florida at 1 p.m. Sunday in front of their home crowd.

A changing sport

Last week, Cirovski was in disbelief.

Going undefeated nine years ago was hard. Doing it again in 2025, with how much the game has changed, was a new level of difficulty.

“There are no easy games in college soccer because the international element has come in in full force,” Cirovski said. “This is now a grown-man’s game and not a traditional 18- to 21-year-old game. That’s made it very, very difficult. It’s a big challenge right now.”

This trend has transformed programs that had previously not had success into true contenders. In 2016, Marshall was 6-13-1 and had never made the NCAA tournament. The Thundering Herd had seven international players on their roster.

Since then, as they’ve added international players, they’ve advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament five times, finishing as runners-up last year. This year, it has just one player from the U.S. Marshall is 11-3-5 and ranked No. 12 in the nation, according to the United Soccer Coaches poll.

The same thing happened at Bryant. Three years ago, the Bulldogs were 3-8-5 and had six international players. This year, they are ranked No. 5 in the nation and have 18 players from outside the U.S.

Maryland isn’t immune to this trend. This year’s team has 13 international players, two of whom were transfers from UMBC, another local pool Cirovski likes to recruit from.

But Cirovski said he takes a different approach than other universities. He follows a formula that starts with finding the best local talent, and then he searches across the U.S. and internationally once he has assessed his remaining needs.

So why is men’s college soccer changing so much?

Part of the reason is that college is no longer seen as a stepping stone to Major League Soccer. The league in 2020 created MLS Next and later MLS Next Pro, both of which are talent pipelines. Every club has an academy team that plays against other academies year-round.

Cirovski said he’s found over the last five years that players who were committed to Maryland end up switching tracks at the last minute. That leaves him scrambling with few options.

Last summer, Jackson Platts signed with MLS’ Orlando City SC out of its academy just weeks before the season began. Cirovski needed to find another player fast. With all the best players in the previous recruiting class signed and the transfer portal closed, searching the international market was Cirovski’s best option. So, between bike rides around Croatia, he hopped on Zoom calls and signed Farouk Cisse out of Germany, and Cisse arrived two days after the season began.

“The marketplace for talent globally is massive,” Cirovski said. “It’s changed a lot, and we’ve had to adjust and adapt. And we have.”

Accessibility has made it easier than ever for international players to get recruited. Some coaches like Cirovski have contacts all over the world who alert them to talented prospects, and technological advances enable players to send high-quality videos to colleges themselves. There are countless recruiting experts who, for a fee, guide them through NCAA rules.

International athletes aren’t eligible for traditional name, image and likeness payments because F-1 student visas prohibit them from working while in the U.S. There may be a need, soon, for other colleges to source locally.

Just obtaining an F-1 student visa is becoming more difficult — the Trump administration has restricted travel from select nations and made the screening interview process more tedious. As a result, new enrollment of international students decreased by 17% this fall, according to the Institute of International Education.

For now, international players are seen as desirable, especially because of their age. They are oftentimes two to three years older than an average freshman, said Zev Taublieb, a former college and professional player who runs a recruiting service, which means they are more developed.

The NCAA allows athletes to get to campus up to one year after graduation to maintain four years of eligibility.

“It’s hard for the NCAA to track the rules,” Taublieb said. “So let’s say they graduate high school at 16, which in England is the case, and then they take four gap years. The NCAA doesn’t know the difference. The kid could say, ‘I’m 20 and just finished my secondary education,’ and the NCAA can’t prove it one way or another, so you’re going to keep the eligibility. In high school here, everyone knows when you finish high school, so there’s no way around it.”

This trend isn’t happening on the women’s side. The NCAA has historically been seen as the second-best league in the world, behind the NWSL. Plus, the talent in the United States is immense, trickling down from the success of the national team.

“Typically speaking, if there’s a girl from Canada, the odds are, there’s a really good girl from America who’s equal level, so why would you bother?” Taublieb said. “The girls here are often the best. They get really good training at such a young age, and they are encouraged to be soccer players.”

Teaching Maryland Pride

Ndrenika got to Maryland first. Then came Kenny Quist-Therson, a Baltimore native, and Jameson Michel, from Columbia.

The three grew up on Baltimore Armour, a local academy that plays at the highest level of youth soccer in the country. After Ndrenika’s freshman year, when Maryland went 11-4-5, he convinced Quist-Therson and Michel to join him.

“Obviously, I was a little biased,” Ndrenika said. “I wanted them to come here.”

They are three of seven Terps who graduated from the academy or spent time there.

In addition to Baltimore Armour, Bethesda Soccer and D.C. United Academy have strong reputations for producing top players.

“Maryland’s always been one of the top production states for high-level youth soccer players,” said Mike Lookingland, the coach of Baltimore Armour, a youth academy. “That’s where Maryland does a great job. They make sure they don’t miss getting that top one, two, three local guys of a recruiting class because it’s always been vital to their success.”

It helps that Maryland, particularly Montgomery County, is a diverse community with residents from all over the world. This includes Ndrenika, who was raised in Olney but has Albanian roots. His grandparents bring traditional meals to home games, so everyone can get a taste of his culture.

“It’s just a good melting pot for the best players to come out of,” Lookingland said.

Because so many of the players have played with each other for so long, they have chemistry from their first day on campus. To play cohesively, they spend time bonding and learning from the rest. Ndrenika prepares his teammates to deal with the ever-changing weather, something he said surprised his international teammates. Jace Clark, from Baltimore, is picking up German phrases from his roommate Leon Koehl.

“This is like a brotherhood,” Clark said. “Everyone is really close, and we are connecting really well. ... We understand each other very well.”

In the packed crowd at Ludwig Field this season, youth players had a front-row seat. They can dream about being on that field one day, because they know the program is committed to giving local kids the opportunity.

“The little players from Baltimore Armour, Bethesda, D.C. United, they want to come watch Maryland play because they’re like, ‘Oh, let’s go watch Albi play this weekend. Let’s go watch Kenny,’” Lookingland said. “I think it keeps the perception that Maryland is Maryland’s team.”