Davenport University came from behind to win the NAIA championship in overtime, defeating previously unbeaten Texas-Brownsville in the process. Striker Dzenan Catic led NAIA in goals with 39, and he scored the tying penalty kick in the final. It was the perfect finish to a truly remarkable season that recently culminated in Catic’s selection by the Philadelphia Union as the 31st pick in the 2015 SuperDraft.

Catic’s 39 goals included six hat tricks (including one in the NAIA semi-finals), eleven multi-goal games, and an outlandishly good 57% shots-on-goal percentage.

PSP spoke to Davenport University men’s soccer head coach Chris Hughes about Catic’s role on the team, his current skill set, and what type of person Union fans are getting. Hughes was recently named the National Soccer Coaches Association of America/FieldTurf NAIA Coach of the Year.

Philly Soccer Page: First of all, I just want to say congratulations on the NAIA championship and, especially, the come-from-behind overtime win in the final. 

Chris Hughes: Yeah, it was exciting. We were down with sixteen minutes left and a penalty kick was created in our opponent’s box. Dzenan was our No. 1 PK taker, and we were able to put that one away and then went into overtime. I think it was two minutes and we got a corner and finished it off.

[Texas-Brownsville] were a very good team, but I think we were pretty determined, and that was, again, one of those games where Dzenan just… it was time to take over and he has that ability. And along with several other of the young men on the team, they took care of business. An exciting day for sure.

PSP: Let me ask you a couple questions about Dzenan specifically. What type of player is he right now? He dominated NAIA – I think he had the most goals by a single player since 2005 – so what kind of forward is he and what role did he play on your team?

He is truly a goalscorer. A finisher.

CH: We ran him as a target striker. He’s got good size, and it really attracts the attention of a couple defenders. That’s how he was defended all the way through the national championship game. He has… when he receives the ball, and/or when he’s shooting, it looks like he goes into a zone. He doesn’t panic like many strikers at the collegiate level. They get in front of goal or double-teamed and you see panic in their eyes — “Oh, what am I gonna do next?” — and you don’t see that in his game.

Those simple goals that some people miss, he’s able to put those away and he makes it look, just, easy. He is truly a goalscorer. A finisher. And those are very hard to find in high school soccer, in club soccer, and luckily we were very fortunate to have him at D[avenport] U and he was one of the many that helped us win that national championship.

PSP: You say he played as a target striker. He had a ton of assists. How is his understanding of space on the field right now? He can hold a defender on his back now, but can he also navigate the back line and pick his matchups against centerbacks?

CH: Navigate as a midfielder or as a striker?

PSP: As a striker, just figuring out where to move to received the ball, which centerback to pick on…

CH: When he doesn’t have the ball and the ball is on the weak side of the field, you can always see him assessing the situation, assessing where he needs to be on the field. Whether it’s pulling to the weak side to pull a defender out, if they’re playing a flat four how to get in behind, the timing of his runs… boy, that’s hard to teach. But he recognizes and understands that role really well.

Now, he’s been a playmaker for most of his career, so he really sees those holes well and he times his runs brilliantly. And I think that’s what caught a lot of teams off guard when he did score because they weren’t ready for that striker to come through. He reads the game well. And that’s truly his gift.

PSP: A lot of the players that come out of college having been dominant, having had the ball on their feet so much, they can have a strange transition because at the professional level they don’t get the ball that much, they don’t see the ball many times over the course of ninety minutes. Is that something you think will be a hard adjustment for him? Or will his comfort on the ball make it easier?

CH: There’s going to be an adjustment period, sure, like any time you’re graduating from one level to the next. It’ll take him time. However, he’s played at high levels. He’s played with those types of professionals. That’s why, looking at many of the young men that were drafted prior to Dzenan, I truly believe – and this is not just his coach talking – that this young man is a hidden talent. And I think whoever was going to pick him, after he figures out exactly what’s needed… the way he trains, the way he eats, the way he takes care of his body… he’s just special that way.

And he needs to be playing at this next level because he has the gifts. And I’m looking forward to seeing those other players around him bringing him along and him contributing in very positive ways. There’s upside potential, does that make sense?

PSP: Sure, a guy like Conor Casey, who has developed into someone that can distribute and then join attacks can bring him along. And Conor has adjusted to the Union’s direct, counterattacking style. Does that mesh at all with the style you play at Davenport?

CH: We were an indirect team. However, part of getting through to a national championship is you have to find that direct game also. If we could get Dzenan in a one-on-one, the chances of him winning the ball and creating havoc for the other back line was huge. Whether he was going to take the shot or deliver a great ball to that weak side run or that run through the middle or that dropback to the 18 for the shot, he just reads that well. And when I saw that one-on-one, my back line was allowed to serve it into him.

And that’s where we played some of the great teams in the beginning of the year and beat them, those teams did not do a good enough job – as good as they were – did not do a good enough job on Dzenan and/or didn’t respect him enough yet and defended him with one. And he popped a couple through. And as the season went on, teams would go, “Oh no, we need to double-team him or put some bodies behind the one-on-one because if he does get ball, he’s going to create havoc for someone somewhere.” So then our gameplan had to change a little bit. We’d drop him farther back, we’d put him outside a little bit and make other teams adjust to him a little bit because he demanded so much respect.

PSP: The one number of his stellar statistics that really stands out is that he put 57% of his shots on goal. Which is just a stunning number. Is that a function of him getting in good positions? Is he just that good of a finisher even at this point in his career?

CH: I think it has everything to do with, as I said at the beginning of our conversation, he doesn’t panic. When he gets in front of goal, and I’ve been coaching many years at the collegiate level and I’ve had lots of strikers, and even those great strikers will line up and try to hit it hard, and maybe not accurately. [Dzenan] recognizes and sees that it needs to go bottom left corner, and not a 95 mph shot, but just a placed shot, and he just does it and you don’t see his body tense up. It’s just nice and smooth. He’s just a finisher, he’s just a true finisher and he doesn’t panic. I think that’s what it is.

We weren’t playing the law of large numbers when he shoots. He knows. And that’s what our goal was, to get him in situations where he’s going to be able to shoot. Because when he does shoot, look at those numbers. It’s pretty doggone good.

I’ve been a coach for many years, in D-III as a head coach for ten years, eight years as an assistant, and a couple here in the NAIA. And in the NAIA there were some fantastic teams. I don’t think the NAIA gets enough credit. So what [Dzenan] had to do to get through not only those last four games but the whole season was fantastic. He played some fantastic boys from all over the world… I cannot wait to watch him go through this journey. He’s driven enough in life. I saw him yesterday… the smile on his face was huge.

PSP: It’s not just that he performed well in the tournament, he was dominant in the tournament. It seemed like he was on a whole different plane. The hat trick in the semifinals, that’s just something you don’t see that much at any level.

CH: Exactly. I’ll just say it: He recognizes where he needs to shoot and doesn’t panic. And that’s truly his gift. And, again, he’s a very good athlete and he’s a very smart young man. He was a professional here. The way he trained in practice, he chose to train like a champion. And that’s why he is where he is today.

PSP: Along those lines, I’m sure one of those things MLS teams are going to concentrate on with him is introducing him to the most physical style they possibly can. And I’m sure that was one of the tactics used against him in college. How did he respond to that?

CH: The big boys and the little boys were either verbal at him – and that’s not going to work – and the physical guys try to hit him, tried to hurt him. And I watched it very closely: He knows how to get out of those tackles; that he has to release the ball before that happens. He recognizes that, so he kept himself out of many of those situations. The only time that there was some big hitting is when he’s inside the box and our outside back serves the ball to his head and that center back is right on his back. And he scored two or three of those, one was against AUM [Auburn University-Montgomery], which is a fantastic team, with two minutes left. Our right back served the ball in the air and he checked his shoulder, saw the keeper stepping out, and he just flicked it over the back of the keeper coming out. He just recognizes that.

PSP: You talked about his finishing before, and now that very nice header goal. How did he score most of his goals?

How many strikers, no matter what level, know to do that?

CH: Most of it was with his feet, and it usually was outthinking the defenders, making runs through that back line, very similar to how he scored in the combine down south, I believe.

To get into the national tournament… we usually put high pressure on the back line of our opponent, that’s typically how we play, we appreciate that style of game (and he was just a workhorse up there) and we’re waiting for that back four to make a mistake. And the game that got us into the national tournament against Northwest Ohio, the goalkeeper made a pass to the, I believe it was the left inside back received the ball, Dzenan was putting pressure, the back decided to hit the ball back to the keeper, and I don’t know if it was the pressure from Dzenan or if the young man was just nervous, but he didn’t put enough pace on it and Dzenan received it on the right side of the goal, probably fifteen yards out.

The keeper came out, Dzenan decided to go on a complete straight beeline across the field, to the left side, so the keeper had to come across. And Dzenan knew that if he shot immediately, the keeper had a good chance of saving it. So Dzenan decided not to and cut across the face of the goal, which forced the keeper to move, the defenders to move, and at that point the keeper had no chance. How many strikers, no matter what level, know to do that? And that’s what got us through. And what an awful way to lose a game, also. But they were taking a risk, and we knew that at some point we were going to capitalize. And I felt bad for the keeper, but he had no choice [but to come out]. And I was on the sidelines going, ‘Wow, that was just brilliantly smart.’

PSP: Also, just the awareness to know he has the time to make that sort of decision.

CH: Yeah, and when he struck the ball with his left foot – and he can shoot with either foot – he didn’t even strike it hard. He knew he had to go to the bottom left corner because the keeper was scrambling to come back across, and it was almost like he placed it in the back of the net, just, ‘That’s where it needs to go.’ And it wasn’t a hit it with the laces as hard as you can shot, it was smooth and easy. Matter-of-fact.

PSP: Final question: What type of guy should fans expect to meet when they do meet him?

CH: He’s a humble young man, I will say that. He’s not cocky, he’s confident. And there’s a big difference between those two terms. He’s a confident young man. Even when we were at the MLS draft and he had talked to coach [Curtin], a couple little kids came up to him and said, ‘Hey, can you sign this ball?’ and he said, ‘I’d love to,’ and the smile on his face…

In our program, our motto is, ‘Iron sharpens iron,’ so one person sharpens another. So we should always be good at what we do in life on the field, and off the field to be gentlemen through the process. And he’s a gentleman. He’s not going to look for the glory. When training starts, when the whistle blows, he’s going to try and earn it.

He’s not a glory-seeker. That’s not his style. He’s going to show through his work ethic and his abilities and his knowledge of the game that he should, at some point, earn starting time. He wants to play. And you’ll see that in training. He doesn’t want to sit on the bench. He is one that is going to do everything he can to earn that respect of the coach and earn that trust, and then perform on a daily basis. And I think that’s his gift also.