Marco Silva’s winding path to Marshall pays off with trip to College Cup

Lehigh Valley native Marco Silva took a winding path to get to Marshall University but his goal for this weekend as he plays in his first College Cup is pretty straightforward.

“I packed for five days,” Silva said in a phone interview before departing with his team to North Carolina earlier this week. “I’m planning to play on Monday.”

To get to Monday’s national championship game, the Thundering Herd will need to beat No. 1 ranked Ohio State. Marshall hasn’t played Ohio State in official game since 2018 but they did beat them 3-1 in the College Spring League earlier this year. While Ohio State has the top ranking, Marshall in the only program out of the four in Cary, N.C. with recent College Cup success.

The Thundering Herd won the national title in 2020 in their only previous College Cup trip. Ohio State has also been in the College Cup just once, losing to Wake Forest in the final in 2007 to a team that included Denver’s head coach (and Medford, N.J. native) Jamie Franks. Franks led Denver to the College Cup in 2016, losing in the semifinal in double overtime to his alma mater.

Silva, who grew up in Coopersburg, Pa. remembers watching the final in 2020 when Marshall beat Indiana in Cary.

“I remember that feeling just watching them at that first College Cup and just being amazed with how they were playing, the style and everything was so different than anything you were seeing at any other college,” Silva said. “So seeing that, I remember thinking wow, who is Marshall, I’ve never heard of that school before. Now here I am trying to get another one with them.”

Silva grew up playing for Lehigh Valley United and spent time in the Philadelphia Union Academy before his path started to diverge a bit. He left the Union and YSC Academy to return to high school at Emmaus, where he played his junior year and then joined the FC Delco MLS Next team his senior year. As many of his peers experienced, the Covid-19 pandemic made recruiting a challenge so he took a gap year at South Kent School in Connecticut, which led him to Marshall.

“I’ve been all over the place,” Silva said. “But there’s many different paths.”

Once in Huntington, he still had to wait his time, taking a redshirt season but that first year proved to be beneficial. After a breakout rookie season last year, he returned to the area to play for Ocean City Nor’easters, scoring a pair of goals while logging 459 minutes for the Mid-Atlantic Division champions.

“Just to get to meet new people, meet a bunch of guys who are also playing at top colleges around the country and kind of getting their perspective from how their programs are run is great,” Silva said of his experience with Ocean City.

The college season, Silva acknowledged, has had its fair share of ups and downs both for him as a player and for his team. His goal in the 3-2 win over SMU in the quarterfinal was his fifth of the season but his first since early October. Over two seasons he’s scored 12 goals and dished 7 assists.

Lineker with the vision 👀, Marco with the finish 💥 pic.twitter.com/SEAkBc6vK1

— Marshall University Men’s Soccer (@HerdMSoccer) December 8, 2024

“We’ve kind of been trying to find ourselves the entire way, you know; it took us I’d say up until the first NCAA Tournament game against Furman,” Silva said. “We just kind of ran riot in that first half. All of a sudden, fives are high, and we really felt like, wow, we can actually do something.”

Peaking at the right time is never easy in the college game, but that’s been the case for the surging Herd and with wins over Furman (4-0), NC State (2-1) and SMU (3-2) they are confident as ever in knocking off the top seed. Hence Silva’s packing and his message to his parents that they should plan to stay in Cary through Monday’s final.

“What a better time to get hot than now.” Silva said.

Marshall and Ohio State square off 30 minutes after the completion of the game between Vermont and Denver Friday night in Cary.