Anthony Briody took the reins of the boys soccer team this season at Bethlehem Catholic in a bit of a tough spot. The team went 4-12-2 overall last season and 3-11-2 in the EPC and lost Anthony Papageorgiou, their offensive leader for the past four seasons, to graduation. Briody has spent the preseason camp and the early part of the season trying to build chemistry among his players and looking for someone to emerge as an offensive threat.

So far, the chemistry is still in the work in progress stage and the offense has struggled, scoring six goals in their first six games, while they’ve given up 31 goals in those games and have struggled to a 1-5 start to the season.

“One of the biggest things that I’ve run into with Bethlehem Catholic is the lack of chemistry with the players. With these guys, the first time that they play together is their freshman year. These guys [Parkland] have been playing together since they were five years old, so they’ve got that chemistry and they don’t need to talk out on the field. Our guys don’t have that chemistry built,” said Briody, a Northampton High School product, after the team’s 10-0 loss at Parkland earlier this season.

Briody is concentrating instead on simply getting his players on the same page and putting together his own game plan for this year’s team. The first few games have seen the Golden Hawks mix and match their lineups as they search for the formula that will get them back on track.

“I don’t know the formations they were playing, I don’t know the culture that was here before I was here. I’m still learning these guys, I’m still learning their techniques. We came in today with a whole different lineup than we played against Central last week. It might even change again. I need to find out where these guys are best suited to work for this team,” said Briody.

For starters, Briody has gone to basics to instill discipline and a sense of pride among his players. Some of that discipline has even extended to issues away from the game itself.

“Wait until you see this field when they leave, it will be spotless,” said Briody. “That’s one of my number one rules. I don’t care if it’s an away game, a home game, practice game, it doesn’t matter where we go, they will clean up, because if they don’t, they get punished.”

On the field, Briody is stressing the simple parts of the game, which relies a lot on simple, basic play and the fundamentals of the game.

“Simple soccer is beautiful soccer. Once they learn to keep possession of the ball and not force things, but to play the open man, they’ll find the game goes a lot easier.”

Briody believes that this year’s team should at least equal last year’s squad, if not better. His style of coaching is generally to be laid back, but the early results have pushed him to considering a change in coaching styles. He stressed to his players after the loss to Parkland that he’s going to be whatever type of coach he has to be to get them to play better soccer.

“I will if I have to, I don’t want to, but I will,” said Briody of possibly needing to be a little tougher on his players. “Just as I’m learning them, they’re learning me. It’s a learning process, so there’s a learning curve.”