Defender Shaban’s attacking prowess leads Lions

He’s sitting in the lounge in his East Campus suite, helping himself to hummus and pita bread courtesy of his first soccer coach—his father. The men’s soccer Ivy League Player of the Week, senior center back Ronnie Shaban, is often criticized by his teammates for his eating habits.

“The fridge is always full of Ronnie’s food,” senior captain Mike Mazzullo said. “There’s never any space left in the freezer.”

But the mechanical engineer from Virginia believes the claim that he eats between three to six dinners is unfair to a certain degree.

“I don’t eat more than one dinner,” Shaban said. “The truth is I’m capable of eating quite a bit. Whether I do or not is a different question.”

The jokes about Shaban and food started in 2009, when head coach Kevin Anderson told him that he needed to lose weight. As a result, he worked with a nutritionist and lost eight pounds in a summer.

Fast forward to the present though, and whatever he’s eating seems to be working. Shaban scored the decisive goal in a 2-1 win against Adelphi last week, and he helped himself to both goals on senior day when the Lions defeated Harvard 2-1. Three goals in two contests is a good return for a striker, let alone a defender. The recent offensive streak has catapulted Shaban to joint-second in the Light Blue’s scoring charts with four goals. He has moved level with sophomore forward Henning Sauerbier but trails junior forward Will Stamatis, who has six.

“Ronnie has hit form at a very good moment for us,” Anderson said. “His defensive play has been solid along with the back four and goalkeepers over the last few weeks. Over the last week, numerous players have played their roles within the team very well and thus provided Ronnie with great opportunities, which he has converted into goals.”

Those goals have kept the Lions in the hunt for a postseason berth—and a shot at the Ivy crown. However, Shaban could very easily have been kicking a different football and competing for an Ivy crown in another team’s colors.

“I dabbled with basketball a bit, and I kicked football in high school,” Shaban said. “I got a few letters but I never really pursued it because I loved soccer too much. I did get letters from Harvard for football kicking—more than from any other school actually.”

However, Shaban committed to Columbia the day after he returned home from his recruiting trip because of the other recruits he met and the players that were already on the team.

Though he played at left back his freshman year, he came into his own in the center of defense as a sophomore. Since then, he has had four different partners in the middle of the backline, while establishing himself as a key member of the team.

“He’s dependable,” said junior center back Brendan O’Hearn, who has been one of the four to have partnered with Shaban. “Central defenders need to have each other’s back—if I make a mistake on the field, I always know I can count on Ronnie to be there to bail us out.”

“He’s a smart soccer player who understands the game,” Mazzullo said. “He stays on his feet a lot and doesn’t go in for stupid tackles that he knows he can’t win. He’s been one of our senior leaders on the team. It’s always nice to have a consistent guy, especially at center back.”

However, there’s more to Shaban than just his defensive ability.

“Ronnie is rock solid, not just as a defender but also as a teammate and friend,” O’Hearn said. “He’s passionate in everything he does, and he gets along with everyone on the team and as a senior, he really sets the foundation for our great team chemistry.”

The coach feels much the same way.

“He is one of the nicest student-athletes that I have ever had the opportunity to work with,” Anderson said. “He is an integral portion of the foundation of this program and he’s loved and respected by all. He’s Ronnie Shaban!”

Part of his role for the program has been penalty duty. It’s rare for a center back to take kicks from the spot, but Shaban’s penalty on the weekend against Harvard was proof that he knows what he’s doing.

“Really, my penalty taking started with my other club coach—not my dad,” Shaban said. “He’s a goalkeeper coach, and one day I was sitting watching his goalkeeper training because I was early to my own practice. He was going over penalty kicks and what goalkeepers should look for to guess which direction to jump—like watching the hips, the position the taker lines up—basically the secret of where the shooter goes. So I watched intently and tailored my kicks to send the goalkeeper the wrong way. And the guys always say I have crazy hips and I use them a lot when I take a kick.”

Harvard’s goalkeeper dove the right way, but Shaban’s penalty was well struck and found the back of the net regardless.

“Here, I won some competition freshman year—whenever we did penalties I was always one of the last guys to miss,” he said. “Every year I’ve been able to show the skill in practice, and most of the guys are confident in my abilities, which gives me confidence that I’ll make it.”

Shaban comes from a family that is “soccer-obsessed.” His younger brother plays at George Washington University, his elder brother used to play the game before he got to college, and his father—who has always coached Ronnie—now coaches Ronnie’s sister. It’s no surprise that the sport has become a large part of the defender’s life, even when he isn’t on the field.

“All I do is watch and play soccer,” Shaban said. “The morning before a game, I’m watching soccer. Weeknights are MLS games. You might be able to say I’m obsessed with it.”

Shaban is a die-hard fan of the English club Arsenal, and whether it’s watching soccer, playing FIFA, or selecting his Premiership fantasy team, soccer is always around.

However, Shaban is also invested in other sports. He enjoys watching the other sports teams, works for the event staff of Columbia Athletics, and writes a column and hosts a podcast for Spectator that allows him to share his insight on Columbia sports. While he is reluctant to think about his long-term future until soccer season is over, he does know what he’d like the rest of his senior year to be like.

“I’m hoping to become an intramural all-star,” he said. “Intramural basketball, dodgeball, volleyball—everything.”

Before then, there’s something more important at stake. The Lions travel to Ithaca to take on the Big Red on Saturday, and a win there, coupled with a tie in the clash between Brown and Dartmouth, would give the Lions the Ivy title. However, regardless of the result in Providence, the Light Blue knows that it must win in order to have a chance at making the NCAA tournament.

“It’s the most important game of my career,” Shaban said. “That said, I won’t prepare any differently. I know what’s on the line, so I’m going to put in my best effort.”

(Full disclosure: Shaban is a sports columnist for Spectator.)