{"id":830187,"date":"2026-07-27T23:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T23:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/830187\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T23:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T23:25:16","slug":"gelnovatch-announces-2026-mens-soccer-incoming-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/830187\/","title":{"rendered":"Gelnovatch Announces 2026 Men\u2019s Soccer Incoming Class"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. \u2013 Virginia head men\u2019s soccer coach, <a href=\"https:\/\/virginiasports.com\/staff\/george-gelnovatch\" title=\"George Gelnovatch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George Gelnovatch<\/a>, announced today (July 27) eight players who make up the team\u2019s signing class ahead of the 2026 season. Virginia\u2019s eight additions make up the No. 5 ranked signing class in 2026 according to Top Drawer Soccer.<\/p>\n<p>The Cavalier signing class includes Prince Abanfo (Accra, Ghana), Chase Duke (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Chase Gozdieski (San Diego, Calif.), Diego Guerra (Recife, Brazil), Emiliano Mercenari (Miami, Fla.), Isaac Mwakutuya (Houston, Texas), Zeus Rankin (Okinawa, Japan) and Nate Young (Evanston, Ill.).<\/p>\n<p>The Cavalier class joins a trio of transfers who joined the team in January including <a href=\"https:\/\/virginiasports.com\/sports\/msoc\/roster\/player\/peter-tolkin\" title=\"Peter Tolkin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Tolkin<\/a> (Butler), <a href=\"https:\/\/virginiasports.com\/sports\/msoc\/roster\/player\/ethan-martinez\" title=\"Ethan Martinez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ethan Martinez<\/a> (Santa Clara) and <a href=\"https:\/\/virginiasports.com\/sports\/msoc\/roster\/player\/arnold-matshazi\" title=\"Arnold Matshazi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arnold Matshazi<\/a> (San Jose State).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This incoming class of first-years and transfers is collectively as ready to contribute as we&#8217;ve had in years,\u201d Gelnovatch said \u201cThey address important needs across the roster while adding quality, depth and competition that will elevate our squad and enables us to compete for championships.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. \u2013 Virginia head men\u2019s soccer coach, George Gelnovatch, announced today (July 27) eight players who make&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-830187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}