SPORTS

Multi-cultural Burlington unites on soccer field

Alex Abrami
Free Press Staff Writer
The Burlington High School boys soccer team is one of the most diverse teams in a state known for its lack of diversity.

Talent can be spotted all over the field when watching the Burlington High School boys soccer team.

Diatourou Drame, a tall and imposing presence, anchors the back line beside the steady and unflinching play of Jonas Lobe, the Seahorses’ lone captain.

The left back, Bienfait Badibanga, quick and powerful, explodes down the flank for long, menacing runs.

Julian Segar-Reid helps dictate play in a poised five-man midfield. And Seraphin Iradukunda, a dazzling playmaker unfazed by man-marking, finalizes the 4-5-1 formation’s flow with a penchant for quick strikes.

It’s all translated into a 12-0 mark entering today’s showdown at Champlain Valley and has the Seahorses atop the Division I standings with a week to go before the playoffs.

But that’s just scratching the surface of the state’s most diverse outfit.

Drame (Senegal), Lobe (Korea), Badibanga (Mozambique), Segar-Reid (Ethiopia) and Iradukunda (Tanzania) originally hail from countries outside the United States.

And the global flavor doesn’t end with those five starters.

From goalie Niels Arentzen (Sweden) to defender Ekrem Hadzic (Bosnia) to midfielders Abinash Rai (Nepal), Arun Karki (Nepal) and Heritier Badibanga (Bienfait’s younger brother, also of Mozambique), third-year coach Fran Demasi routinely pencils in a starting 11 of nearly all foreign-born players.

In all, the Burlington roster is made up of 13 nationalities while nine languages, including English, are spoken. One Burlington teacher, with the aid of a player, counted up 21 total languages — ranging from Swahili to Wolof to Kirundi.

“It really shows what a unifying game this is, when everybody can come together, from wherever, and all share a common goal,” said Segar-Reid, a junior. “That’s really unique and no other team in the state has that same sort of demographic.”

The Seahorses, thanks to a 42-7 scoring margin over opponents, are perfect through a dozen games. But that was far from the case in Demasi’s first two seasons back on the Buck Hard Field sidelines — the BHS physical education teacher previously had a 23-year run as the girls soccer coach — when dissension and clashing cultures fractured an inexperienced but gifted group.

Varsity Insider: Week 5 boys soccer power rankings

“We really struggled my first year, kids weren’t getting along. They would just argue every time we played a possession game or something or if they didn’t receive the ball they would bark at each other,” Demasi said. “It got to a point in practice where we’d kick them out and be done for the day.

“But I tell you what — this has been the best year, and it’s been fun coming to practice.”

UNITING AS A TEAM

Iradukunda arrived from Tanzania with his refugee family in 2008. He was 8 years old.

The temperature change was the biggest shock.

“I hate the winters. That was something new when I came here. It’s still very new,” said Iradukunda, chatting with a reporter while wearing gloves during a practice last week.

Soccer, though, was not a fixture for Iradukunda in his native country.

“To be honest, I started playing when I was in seventh grade. My parents wanted me to be more of a student,” the senior said. “I always liked soccer, but never really had the chance to play.”

When he started to play in Vermont, Iradukunda was surprised by another revelation

“We got to play with cleats and shin guards. We didn’t have those (in Tanzania), we played bare foot,” Iradukunda said. “It was all new to me.”

As soccer became his sport, Iradukunda began to model his game by watching videos of Ronaldinho, the former Brazilian star.

“He’s magical to watch, he really is,” Demasi said of Iradukunda, a four-year BHS player who has a team-high 16 goals this fall.

Drame’s introduction to Vermont — and with the Burlington team — is much more recent.

The Senegal native who can speak three languages arrived in the Green Mountain State last fall with his mother and one of his sisters to join his father, who had already moved here some time ago.

Drame spent five months in Colchester, and played for the Lakers as a junior, before transferring to Burlington.

“I came to Vermont for a better education,” Drame said.

The Badibanga brothers moved to Vermont with their parents a couple years ago.

“It has to be big change. Everything is different,” said Bienfait Badibanga, who also speaks Swahili and Portuguese.

Burlington's Seraphin Iradukunda, right, and South Burlington's Will Graham put their feet on the ball in Burlington on Friday, September 23, 2016.

Susan Blethen, an English language teacher at Burlington, said it’s a challenge for students to learn a second — or sometimes third or fourth languages — while maintaining good grades and playing a sport.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” Blethen said.

But the diversity of the soccer team “is a really good representation of who Burlington is now.”

“We are a multi-cultural school that meets every day challenges and they do it with determination and strength — and with a smile, especially this group,” she said.

Getting on the same page on the soccer pitch was another matter for Demasi’s crew.

A four-win campaign with no seniors on the roster in 2014 didn’t tell the whole story of a dysfunctional bunch.

Practices were cut short on occasion due to the behavior and shouting matches between the players.

“My freshman year there were a lot chemistry issues,” Segar-Reid said. “A lot of bickering, just basically self-destructing on our whole team.”

Last year, the Seahorses won 12 games before an upset loss to Mount Anthony in the Division I quarterfinals at home. Still, the progress had mixed results.

“You could actually start to see it last year, but we still had four, five kids who would do their own thing and would always argue with other players,” said Demasi, adding those players departed the program in the offseason. “We haven’t had one situation where we’ve had to ask a player to leave practice this year.”

Demasi said the combination of clashing cultures and the team’s exuberant youth made the process a tad longer to form a tighter bond, a more cohesiveness unit.

“I have a great group and I hope we go far,” Demasi said.

Some players focused more on the team’s inexperience as the chief reason for developing chemistry.

“There are a lot of different soccer backgrounds, not necessarily cultural,” said Lobe, who was adopted and moved to Burlington when he was about a year old. “Over last three years, we’ve gotten the chance to know each other and play with each other.

“They are times when language is a barrier, but I’d say overall soccer is a pretty commonly spoken language around the world.”

Like Lobe, Segar-Reid also came to Vermont via adoption as an infant. Segar-Reid, a three-year varsity player, as seen the team’s growth first-hand.

“We’ve really matured a lot. This year, there’s virtually no arguing,” Segar-Reid said. “It’s such a pleasant environment and it’s so much easier to work together as a team rather than being a bickering mess.”

Junior midfielder Alex Dinklage, one of the few U.S.-born starters, said he’s proud of his team’s diversity.

“We are pretty much all the same people. It doesn’t matter where we come from, we can all enjoy the same things,” Dinklage said. “It doesn’t matter what we look like on the outside.”

Burlington’s unselfish play has come at the right time, too.

“We have the best raw talent in the state. You can see it when we play, everyone is so gifted on the field,” Segar-Reid said.

CHASING A TITLE

Burlington's Bienfait Badibanga, right, tangles with South Burlington's Amerlin Nemeye at Buck Hard Field on Friday.

Against South Burlington on Sept. 23, Heritier Badibanga poked in the game-winner of a 1-0 clash with 30 seconds to go.

Five days later, the Seahorses conceded an early goal only to strike for a pair of pretty tallies to snag the 2-1 win at Essex.

On the winning goal, Iradukunda broke free from a double team down the left side, hugged the end line and fed Heritier Badibanga for a one-time finish.

The takeaway from the wins over two of their main rivals for the Division I crown — CVU is the other — was how the Seahorses continued to play their style and avoided the in-game fighting that had burned them in the past.

“I think those two games sum up our team. The character we have this year is incredible,” Segar-Reid said.

That fine line was put to the test at Colchester earlier this month. Unable to find the net despite dominating the chances through the hour mark, Demasi opted to move Drame off the back line and up front with Iradukunda in a 4-4-2 formation to spark a goal.

The move worked, with Drame tucking away the opening goal off a corner kick scramble. Drame went back to patrolling the back line and the Seahorses pounced for three more in the 4-0 win.

“I think if you have great chemistry, you’ll have a great team, and I think that’s what we have with our team right now,” Demasi said.

Shoring up defensive woes has also helped. Drame, Lobe, Ekrem Hadzic and Bienfait Badibanga have solidified a tough-to-crack back line. Half of goalie Niels Arentzen’s 12 wins are clean sheets.

“Our offense is what people are watching, but someone who analyzes soccer well, knows our defense is rock-solid too,” Segar-Reid said.

The question moving forward, however, is will a potential teachers strike affect the Seahorses’ playoff run? Teachers could strike Thursday if a settlement is not reached at a mediation session the night before. It’s unclear how that could affect the sports teams at BHS.

“Hopefully the teachers don’t go on strike because that would do something to our season,” Dinklage said. “We would love to win a championship and it’s our year to do it.”

This story was originally published on Oct. 17, 2016. Contact Alex Abrami at 660-1848 or aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/aabrami5

BURLINGTON’S DIVERSE ROSTER

*List of where players were born

Bosnia: Ekrem Hadzic

Democratic Republic of the Congo: Christian Kibabu

Ethiopia: Julian Segar-Reid

Kenya: Madey Madey, Hussien Muburak, Hashim Muse

Korea: Jonas Lobe

Mozambique: Bienfait Badibanga, Heritier Badibanga

Nepal: Arun Karki, Abinash Ra

Senegal: Diatourou Drame

Tanzania: Seraphin Iradukunda

Thailand: Nay Htet Lay

Somalia: Ismail Liban

Sweden: Niels Arentzen

United States: Matt Burbo, Owen Clark, Alex Dinklage, Jake Kuypers, Jacob Markle, Spencer Macdonald, Campbell Smith

Editor’s note: Information provided by BHS coach Fran Demasi