The team reflects on rebuilding the beautiful game at HBS in the wake of Covid-19.
Like many clubs across campus, the Soccer Club suffered from the adversity of Covid-19. All the best practices, processes, and knowledge accumulated in decades of existence vanished in only a couple of years, as they were not transferred from ECs to RCs.
This season, the club leadership is launching a series of initiatives to rebuild legacy and restore soccer to its former historic glory in the world of sports at HBS.
The “club with the most events”
“If you think about it,” says co-president Romek Sadowski (MBA ’24), a member of old Section E, “our club has events three times a week!” Indeed, with practice sessions happening every Tuesday and Thursday and competitive league matches on Sundays, very few clubs can claim to organize more events on campus than the Soccer Club.
But the club doesn’t stop there. Apart from organizing and hosting the Boston Sunday Grad League – in which three HBS teams compete on home turf against MIT, HKS, HLS, Fletcher, B.U. and Tufts – the club sent a team to play in Columbia’s Tournament in New York City in October, failing only the last step to qualify for the final.
Every month, the club also organizes “Boots & Beers” gatherings in Harvard Square pubs after training. “The calendar is likely going to intensify as we go into the winter and members slowly switch to the second thing they do best together – drinking beers ,” adds social chair Anirban Poddar (MBA ’24), a member of old Section C .
In November, the club coordinated the classic Section Intramurals at Shad every Thursday, and traveled to New Haven to play against rival Yale where they also enjoyed the first ever retreat.
During the winter, the squad will move indoors. In addition to transferring practices and physical conditioning to the good old Shad basketball courts and gym, they will most likely be signing up for off-campus indoor tournaments organized by Boston Ski & Sports Club (BSSC).
In the spring, the club already has plans to sign two teams up for the Austin Tournament, widely considered the “national cup” for MBA schools across the nation. It will also organize and host its own Northeastern Cup on campus with guests like Wharton, CBS, and Yale. Finally, the leadership team is considering hosting the club’s first-ever party (stay tuned).
“Most of these tournaments existed pre-Covid and had their first edition post-Covid last year. There’s a lot to be done to continue to rebuild them bigger and bigger, and make HBS a main competitor in them,” comments Ian Hooft (MBA ’24) of old Section J, in charge of tournaments for the club.
Inclusivity
One of the club’s main ambitions for this year was to open up the teams even further to the community.
“We have people from all levels and all nationalities. In training, you can hear at least 4-5 languages being spoken at any given time.” says Andres Venturino (MBA ’24) of old Section B, in charge of the club's operations. Yes, the universality of the world’s most famous sport helps!
The club prides itself on being very welcoming to partners, too, with almost 20 partners having joined its ranks. “The Soccer Club is exceptionally welcoming, and always made me feel comfortable and included. When I see club members on campus or at practice and games, they greet me and talk to me as ‘Alex’ and not as ‘so and so's partner’. That really helped me ease into the HBS community in my own way,” explains Alex Gatto, who is the club’s first-ever partner to be elected treasurer.
Finally, the club launched the most ambitious marketing plan in years to welcome women into its membership. The results are astounding. Last year, only a handful of women signed up for the club. This year, there are almost 20. “What we are doing with all these initiatives is making the club more accessible to everyone. This is really what makes this club so special to me,” says Sarita Biswas (MBA ’24) of old Section K , the club’s first women’s representative to be part of the leadership board.
Passion and history
What attracts these students from all walks of life is passion for the “Beautiful Game” at first – but they stick around out of passion for the squad of people it brings together.
This passion takes many forms on and off the pitch. Co-president Paul Divet (MBA ’24), a member of old Section C, went as far as to spend part of his summer researching the origins of the club in the Baker Library archives, knowledge that had been lost during Covid-19.
What he found about this mysterious plot continues to amaze everyone in the club. Divet found the first picture of the official Soccer Club in a yearbook from 1983, with the caption “B-School Booters.”
He then went through all the yearbooks and Harbus archives from 1983 to present day, carefully collecting pictures, victory records, and names of more than 350 alumni from the club. Just when he felt his job was done to retrieve the club’s history, he received an email from Rachel Wise, HBS Archivist. Rachel mentioned that she “was looking through the 1961 yearbook and found an entry for the Soccer Club.”
Could the Soccer Club be one of the oldest clubs still standing on campus?! The answer is probably yes.
Despite the enduring mystery surrounding the club’s origins, Paul’s research has already had some tangible repercussions on today’s teams. Indeed, he discovered that through the 1980s and early 1990s, women had their own soccer club at HBS. “The whole girls’ initiative this year is part of a broader ambition to restore an official Women’s Soccer Club one day. The journey is long, but it can be built class by class from here on! It would be amazing for the sport at HBS,” explained Paul.
The club also nicknamed one of their teams “HBS Booters” as an homage to their O.G. team and revamped the historic full-white jersey from the 1980s.
Now that the club knows where it comes from, it can better see where it’s going. And the future looks bright.
“As the only RC in the club’s leadership, I felt we needed to apply what we learned in the RC Marketing class to our beautiful club by launching the club’s social media strategy,” says Johann Farhat (MBA ’25) of Section H, who leads the club's public relations.
If you want to follow the club’s quest for glory this year and stay tuned to its many achievements, you can follow them on Instagram at @hbs_soccerclub now.
And remember…let’s go Booters!
Paul Divet (MBA ’24) comes from a multicultural family mixing Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and France. He graduated from SciencesPo Paris with degrees in Political Science in 2014 and Corporate Strategy in 2017. Prior to HBS, Paul worked in food retail in Paris and São Paulo. He's been playing soccer for more than 20 years now, starting on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro as a kid all the way to Cambridge.
Romek Sadowski (MBA ’24) hails from South Africa and Poland. Before moving to the US last year, he worked in financial services at Discovery Limited in Johannesburg. He is a qualified actuary by profession, having graduated from Stellenbosch University in 2017. Romek has been playing soccer since 2001, serving as captain while in college, and now co-leading the club at HBS. He’s been to three World Cups around the world, with plans to attend every single one until he dies. Johann Farhat (MBA ’25) was born in France then later moved to Lebanon. He graduated from the American University of Beirut with a civil engineering degree in 2018. Post graduation, he worked in consulting in Dubai for 2.5 years before moving to Madrid to work for Amazon in strategy for 2.5 years prior to joining the MBA program. Johann played soccer in the first and second division in Lebanon, before playing in the fifth division when he moved to Madrid.
Tim Ford (MBA ’25) is originally from New Jersey. He graduated from the University of Virginia with degrees in Commerce and Spanish in 2018, and completed an M.Phil. in Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge in 2019. Prior to the HBS MBA, Tim worked in growth equity in San Francisco.