Bedoya's Beautiful Game

The 2005-06 year delivered landmark changes to Boston College's athletics history. The Eagles, once a founding member of the Big East, left the only all-sports league they ever knew and joined the southern-based Atlantic Coast Conference in what was, at the time, a risky move. It was the first height of a school's ambition to create a national profile, and it resonated and solicited opinions from every corner of the college sports world for years as leagues' tectonic plates shifted and moved.

For BC, successful realignment only occurred because of the accomplishments within individual sports. Any glass ceiling over the Eagles shattered in those first few years, though nothing reached an apex quite like fall in 2007. Only one team, though, laid claim to the tallest mountain of a league championship: men's soccer.

Leading those teams was a group of revolutionary, ultra-talented players who forever changed the face of the Eagles, including Alejandro Bedoya, whose 2007 season still ranks among the all-time greatest performances in program history.

"I loved everything about it," he said. "There was the school and academics, but I was fortunate enough to go there when it was such a great time for sports. Hockey was doing great, Matt Ryan was the quarterback, and the football team was thriving. It was just a great time to be a Boston College student. Plus I was the ACC Offensive Player of the Year, and we were the ACC champion. How else can anyone describe it - I was just loving life at BC."

Bedoya scored eight goals and accumulated 26 points in 21 appearances for the Eagles in his first season after playing two years at Farleigh Dickinson University, where he won a Freshman All-America selection in 2005. His performance earned him the first of two consecutive All-America selections, and he won the ACC's Offensive Player of the Year Award one year after Charlie Davies. It placed him on the All-ACC First Team with Reuben Ayarna, the first of two all-conference selections for Bedoya.

"The ACC is the pinnacle of college soccer, and that's where I always wanted to be," he said. "BC further had the reputation with the academics, and Boston is such a great college town. Charlie Davies had been there, so there were going to be big shoes to fill, but I had confidence in myself. so it was always the school that I wanted to go to, over some of the other schools that looked at me."

It was part of a larger revolution at the soccer complex on Newton Campus. The Eagles went winless in their first ACC campaign in 2005 but went 7-1-0 in 2007 to win the school's first ACC regular season championship. The team amassed three extended undefeated streaks, the first of which was seven games, and it rode a second, four-game winning streak to the school's first-ever ACC Championship win. To date, it remains the only league tournament championship in the ACC era.

The performance earned BC a trip to the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 overall seed, but an upset-minded UMass team defeated the Eagles, 2-1, in the Second Round matchup in Newton to end the team's national championship bid. BC led in that game after Bedoya scored in the 18th minute, but two second half goals ended a run widely considered a legitimization of the school playing in college soccer's toughest proving grounds.

Bedoya finished his collegiate career the next season with another All-ACC performance despite missing time due to injury. He again topped 17 points, this time with six goals, three of which came in a game against North Carolina that earned him National Player of the Week honors. Though not as prolific as the prior season, the Eagles earned an at-large bid with a 9-8-2 overall record and won their way to the Second Round with a 2-0 win over Colgate. They then met No. 16 Dartmouth and lost on penalties after battling through a scoreless draw.

"(Former head coach) Ed Kelly built a good team with local guys, guys from across the country, and with guys from around the world," Bedoya said. "We had a great team with good guys on and off the field. We just gelled. Ed Kelly had a love for the game, an appreciation for the game, and it spilled out in the way he dealt with us off the field. We needed a good support system, and everyone around BC really provided it. It made me feel right at home, at BC."

The two-season stretch turned Bedoya into a full-fledged professional prospect, and he signed with Orebro SK of Sweden's Allsvenskan. He later became a piece of the team's renaissance, and in his second year as a professional, Orebro finished third to qualify for the UEFA Europa League.

"Going to Sweden was a blessing," he said. "I had an opportunity to play in some bigger leagues, but I visited Charlie Davies during my senior year and felt it was a good stepping for me. It wound up being a great spot for me; we'd watch so much game film and study it. We didn't really do that in college, so to be able to do that, I would sit down and watch hours of video. It really helped get my game to another level."

After a third season, Bedoya moved to Rangers in the Scottish Premiership before returning to Sweden to play for Hesingborgs IF. Following a fifth place finish in the Allsvenskan, he moved again, this time to FC Nantes in France's prestigious Ligue 1. Over the next three seasons, he made almost 90 appearances for Les Canaries and scored 11 goals.

It turned Bedoya into an international superstar and entrenched him as one of the best players in the world. He earned a spot on the United States national team and helped the squad win the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2013. He remained an integral part of the roster into the next year, when the Americans advanced to their second consecutive World Cup knockout round. Alongside the 2010 appearance, it was the first time the nation ever advanced as far in back-to-back tournaments.

"I've been blessed with playing in some of the biggest stadiums (in the world)," Bedoya said. "It's a different type of passion in Europe. Every game means so much, and the fans are so passionate for every game. In most countries over there, soccer is the number one sport."

It all eventually led him back to his native homeland in 2016. Bedoya signed with the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer. An expansion team from the 2010 round of growth, the club placed higher than seventh in the Eastern Conference once in its first four years, and signing the former Eagle signaled a new direction of the construction efforts to create a winning soccer tradition.

"My son was born, so part of it was wanting to come home for family reasons," he said, "but I'm also ambitious and like a good challenge. Hearing what the coaching staff and the front office had to say, what they wanted to do and the academy they had going, I wanted to be a part of it. I felt like (the Union) were ambitious but also had a plausible idea of what they wanted to do with the club.

It's helped move the Union into an undeniable, top-tier slot among their MLS tablemates. They advanced to the quarterfinals of the MLS Cup Playoffs last season and held three appearances in the US Open Cup final game over the past five seasons. This year, their match against Los Angeles FC, last year's Supporters' Shield winner, was widely regarded as an instant classic.

"In the beginning, it was tough, and there were growing pains in my first eight or ten months here," he explained, "but then I settled in and took over a leadership role. There's an accountability. I demand a lot of myself, so I also demand a lot out of everyone else. With my personality, inside those white lines, I'm serious and want to get the job done, and outside the lines, I'm loose and have a good time. When you mix those things, the culture starts changing. This league is about parity, and it's up to us to put in the work and make sure we come out on top."

Nothing, though, prepared the Union - or Bedoya - for the challenge of playing through the COVID-19 pandemic. The team's 3-3 draw against LAFC came four days before MLS shut suspended its season, and play remained idle for three months between March and June. When it did return, the MLS is Back Tournament created regular season games from its group stage before a knockout tournament crowned a champion.

The Union eventually advanced to the semifinals of the tournament after going undefeated with one draw in their three, Group A games, and Bedoya scored Philadelphia's only goal in the team's first game back, against New York City FC. Later, his two assists helped the Union to the final four before sustaining a loss to the Portland Timbers.

"It's been tough," Bedoya said. "This is the 25th year (for MLS), so it was supposed to be a big celebration. But then COVID hit us and impacted the whole country pretty hard. It created very anxious moments in those months in March and April, but we were able to do something in the bubble that worked. It gave us a sense of normalcy, and for us as players, we got to go out there and compete and do what we love to do. For me, it was great to be able to play and be competitive."

All of it occurred on an intense backdrop painted by the nation's dueling crises. The MLS regular season resumed after the tournament's conclusion, but the COVID-19 pandemic remains ongoing throughout the nation. Likewise, the nation's battle for social justice gripped the summer months, and Bedoya stood at the forefront of the players' social justice efforts when soccer returned in the Orlando bubble.

"This year has taken a toll on all of us, physically and mentally," Bedoya said. "Mentally, it's causing all of us to take a deeper dive into conversations we might not have had or still may not be having. When we talk about social justice and racism, it's just about talking about humans, about treating each other with respect and empathy.

"A locker room is a microcosm of society," he continued. "Guys are in there from all over the place, from all over the world, different countries, religions, creeds, and races. The fact that we can show the unity that we've shown as a club bodes well, and I'd like it to reflect better in our society. It's important for us to speak out, to use our platform and visibility to connect with our communities and neighborhoods that we care about a lot. It's an opportunity to be vocal and have conversations, which can be mentally exhausting, but they're very important. You see it throughout the different leagues, and we'll continue to do it here as a club."

It's why Bedoya is still one of the most beloved names in Boston College soccer history more than 10 years after his last appearance in Newton. He transferred to Chestnut Hill and debuted in the season immediately after Charlie Davies turned pro, but the duo established a legacy for the Eagles. Both players turned into international stars before ultimately returning to the United States, a road that started by turning BC into one of the top programs in arguably the best NCAA soccer conference.

"You always want to compete with the best and against the best," Bedoya said. "When I didn't go to BC for my freshman year, I was still a Freshman All-American but felt like I wasn't playing for a school known for its soccer prowess. That was like BC, but I still wanted to play in the ACC. It was the best conference and the most competitive. My profile got enhanced by playing at BC, and BC gave me the opportunity to showcase my talent to the whole country."

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