Sitting stoically in the first seat to the right of Syracuse head coach Ian McIntyre, Jukka Masalin watches as McIntyre stands and orchestrates a game.

With frisked-back blonde hair, the man who McIntyre says “runs the show” mainly observes the product of his labor, and keeps his thick Finnish accent to himself.

“I can’t get rid of him,” McIntyre joked. “He’s an outstanding soccer guy, but he’s also more than that. He’s someone to lean on, (someone) that can challenge you, support you and a very, very important part of what we do.”

Masalin is in his first season as SU’s associate head coach and his seventh coaching under McIntyre — their fifth together at SU. The top-five product that the Orange (13-2-1, 4-2 Atlantic Coast) has put on the field so far this year has materialized in large part from Masalin visiting and calling European recruits, along with directing practice drills on the Lower Hookway fields.

He’s also shouldered the responsibility of choosing movies on bus rides, something he draws criticism for, but his expertise overseas and on the training ground are what have helped elevate Syracuse soccer.

 “At the end of the day, kids want to be on a winning team and be part of building something different,” Masalin said. “I guess we’ve done a decent job at the end of it of recreating and building this program.”

SU’s combined five wins in his first two seasons as McIntyre’s assistant at Syracuse certainly didn’t make it easy for Masalin to attract top international talent. Now it’s not as difficult.

“It was pretty frickin’ brutal,” Masalin said of his first two seasons at SU. “But now you look at what we’ve done. It’s an easy sale at the end of it because (recruits) see the longevity of it and they see what you’ve accomplished.”

Being from Europe has its perks for Masalin, too. It’s what allowed defensive midfielder and fellow Finn Juuso Pasanen to feel comfortable with the Orange. It’s a big part of the reason starting Norwegian right winger Oyvind Alseth, who had only spoken to Masalin through the phone when he verbally committed, is in an SU uniform.

Masalin also fought off local German club teams and other ACC schools to get former U-18 German national teamer Julian Buescher to come to central New York from Duelmen, Germany, which Masalin attributed to his extensive connections.

He’s able to relate with European recruits that American coaches may not be able to in the same way. He does it not just with spoken language, but also the language of the game.

“I had no idea how the whole conference system worked,” Pasanen said. “If you’re talking to a fellow countryman, you know that you can trust them because he has the same values as you, same ideas. He’s definitely a big part in the recruitment process.”

Alseth, Pasanen and Norwegian forward Emil Ekblom all said they knew very little, if anything, about Syracuse and the American college soccer conference structure before talking to Masalin.

His goal is to create a personal connection with the recruit and then “paint the picture of what it actually means” to come play college soccer in a different country. Masalin added that these European teenagers wouldn’t even know what an out-of-conference game is if he didn’t put the American game into perspective.

More than one-third of SU’s 28 goals this season have come from Europeans that Masalin helped bring to the program — including seven from Ekblom, SU’s leading scorer the past two years. McIntyre said it’s the work his assistant does off the recruiting trails, though, that is even more important.

In day-to-day practices, he shows off his technical and tactical knowledge of the game, which McIntyre says is one of the best he’s seen in the country.

Whether it’s calling out cadences for dynamic stretching exercises, leading small-sided possession games or overseeing short-distance volley drills, Masalin is in his niche during practices and game warm-ups.

“I think training is for me, something I think I’m pretty good at,” he said. “I would be in the grass fields all day long if I could just train the guys.”

But while most of his methods are heralded, not everything Masalin does away from games falls in a good light with the team.

On a 10-hour bus ride to Virginia Tech earlier in October, the team was forced to watch a Captain America Lego movie. With long trips to southern ACC schools littering the Orange’s schedule, Masalin is tasked with providing the traveling entertainment and, judging by the team’s feedback, has fallen short.

Masalin, though, said his selections are “fantastic” and that McIntyre is just “moody.”

“He was promoted to selecting movies a couple years ago and it’s been patchy at best,” McIntyre said. “That and the fact he doesn’t really speak English, those are the two knocks on Coach Masalin.”

But his recruiting and tactical prowess trump his cinematic tastes, and the former is why the man who’s been by McIntyre’s side for the last seven years has been influential in bringing SU out of the depths of college soccer and to the brink of a No. 1 ranking on Tuesday.

“Even though Mac is the head coach, Jukka has a lot of responsibility and he does it well,” Alseth said. “He’s a huge, huge resource for our program.”

Published on October 28, 2014 at 12:06 am

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