Coach George Gelnovatch smiles and claims innocence. He can never hear, he says, precisely what words junior goalkeeper Colin Gallagher shouts at the center of the players-only huddle moments before a Virginia men’s soccer game starts.
“I hear some of it,” Gelnovatch said. “I just tell him, ‘Please don’t swear. Try not to swear.’”
Adam Perron, the team’s associate head coach and goalkeepers coach, can provide a little more clarity. He says there are some expletives, without getting into too much detail. Junior defender Nick Dang also declines to share specifics.
But what about the man himself, Gallagher?
“Definitely some not-so-nice language,” Gallagher said. “But I usually find something on TikTok, a quote from a football coach or something like that. And I’ll kind of go off that.”
There is, to be clear, nothing remotely malicious about the pregame talks. The swear words come with the territory, ubiquitous in pregame huddles everywhere. In that respect, Virginia’s bunched-in, rowdy huddle is fairly normal.
But the player leading it for much of the season is less so. Normally, veterans or on-field leaders conduct pregame huddles. Gallagher, in contrast, has played zero minutes in his three seasons with the program. But he is at the center of that huddle every game, hyping his teammates up.
“That’s a selfless team guy,” Perron said.
Gallagher started leading the huddle his freshman year. But on the field, when he arrived from Safety Harbor, Fla., he could do the math. Former goalkeeper Holden Brown, two years ahead of him, would occupy the job for two years. But there would be an opening after that.
He knew he was not ready yet, so he resolved, in that time, to develop. He would wait behind Brown and try to be ready when his time came. The huddle thing was never part of the plan.
“I kind of saw it happening one day,” Perron said. “I was like, ‘Man. Colin’s in the middle.’”
The huddle used to be a Brown thing. The massive keeper, a pillar in goal, delivered some fiery, rousing talks in his day. He also dropped some duds. He occasionally strayed off topic, by miles.
“We were all looking around like, ‘Oh, what’s this guy going on about?’” Gallagher said.
So, after a couple of those in a row, Gallagher stepped in. Virginia had traveled to Pittsburgh in 2022 for a September showdown with the country’s No. 10 team. Gallagher, a freshman at the time, feeling the nerves but somehow emboldened, approached captain Andreas Ueland.
“I was like, ‘Yo, I got this one,’” Gallagher said. “And he was like, ‘All right, whatever you want’ … And I just went in there [and] fired everyone up.”
Virginia scored precisely one minute and 19 seconds into a 3-1 win. The other players, of course, drew the natural conclusion — that the pregame talk made the difference. They insisted Gallagher retain the role. The job, from then on, was his.
But he still hoped to eventually get the real job, the starting job. The timeline was reasonable, or as much as it can be at a competitive program like this. Brown would graduate — he actually ended up adding a medical redshirt year and transferring out after graduating — and Gallagher would have a chance to win the job.
But then came a transfer. Senior goalkeeper Joey Batrouni arrived in the spring before last season, sparking a competition. On the first day of practice, Batrouni conceded no goals in a small-sided game. Not one.
“I was looking across the field,” Gallagher said. “And I was like, ‘There’s no way. This kid. There’s no way this is happening right now. You’ve got to be kidding me, they got a guy this good.’”
The job has belonged to Batrouni since the middle of last season, and he has performed incredibly, a professional prospect with dizzying reflexes. Batrouni upended Gallagher’s timeline. But the two, despite that initial tension, have become close friends.
For now Gallagher’s domain is the training field, where he works hard every day, and the huddle, where he holds court.
“I never want to be one of those people that's sulking that I'm not playing, or I'm disappointed,” Gallagher said. “Even though maybe at times I am disappointed that I'm not playing. But I always want to help the team win.”
The team clusters around him — all 42 players for home games, the active players, the reserves, the injured — right before the starting 11 runs out to their positions. They overlap their arms, closing in. He turns a circle, looking guys in the eyes, channeling the spirit of whatever clip he watched in preparation.
“That guy in the middle is usually one of your leaders,” Gelnovatch said. “And Colin’s been a great leader.”
Batrouni will graduate after this year. So will graduate goalkeeper Tom Miles, the team’s No. 2. That leaves a three-way battle — barring any outgoing or incoming movement — for the starting position next season.
The other two options are sophomore goalkeeper Caleb Tunks and freshman goalkeeper Spencer Sanderson. Sanderson is redshirting this season.
Gallagher, at the moment, seems to lead the trio — after all, the coaches picked him as the third and final keeper in the traveling roster for the ACC Tournament semifinals. Perron confirmed that Gallagher sits slightly above Tunks, but he described Sanderson as the team’s keeper of the future — sooner or later.
Gallagher has known, throughout his career, that he could play other places and have a much easier time getting on the field. But he and his family place education at a premium, and he loves the school, the people. He is on track to potentially graduate in the spring and has two more years of eligibility.
“He’s a voice in the locker room,” Perron said. “Guys love him, like I mentioned before. He’s got a great personality, infectious. He’s a smart kid.”
At the moment, though, the man in the middle is senior defender and captain Paul Wiese. He ripped off some chant at one point late in the season, and the team started winning, so they of course have to ride it out with Wiese for the time being. Gallagher has kept his comments to the locker room. He will likely do so again Saturday, when Virginia plays Massachusetts in the last 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
But most of the last three years, Gallagher has been the guy. His family, watching from home, gets to see him on television. Someone will invariably post a picture in the family group chat — “Oh my god, we saw you.”
Good thing there is no audio — his mother, he says, would not like that. But his teammates love it.
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