‘Iron Bowl of soccer’: Auburn takes on Alabama

The stakes are always high whenever the Auburn Tigers and Alabama Crimson Tide face off. Tomorrow night the two programs will look to earn bragging rights on the soccer field. Auburn will enter the matchup 4-0-3. Head coach James Armstrong told Auburn Undercover what his team needs to do to have success.

Coach Armstrong, “They are going to make the space on the field as big as possible. When they do that and when they commit to that it’s a lot more difficult to transition into defense. If we can win the ball and attack quickly and efficiently. Hopefully that is situations we can capitalize on.”

Senior forward Dylan Driver leads the Tigers with three goals. She feels her size and strength make her a threat to opposing defenses. Driver shared with Auburn Undercover how she can put her teammates in a position to be successful when all the attention goes to her.  “Whatever I see in the game, whether that’s additional space or that I need to pass off, that’s what I will do to try and make us be most successful,” Driver said.

Auburn defensively has only conceded one goal all year. They have also taken 66 corner kicks this year. Coach Armstrong would like his team to be able to capitalize more on these opportunities. Auburn Undercover asked junior midfielder Gracie Brown how they can do that against Alabama.  “There’s a lot of scenarios in a game that we are prepared for. No matter what the defense shows us we are prepared to run probably 10 different plays,” Brown said.

Alabama will enter tomorrow’s match 7-1. The Tigers are expecting a big crowd with football having a home game the following night. Auburn Undercover wanted to know how the crowd could play a factor.

Armstrong said, “What better to do then to come watch an Iron Bowl rivalry right here. We are really hopeful those families and students and everyone else will come out. What a better way then to prepare for a very fun Saturday.”

Driver echoed her coach, “I think this is the perfect opportunity, especially for the fans who don’t know anything about soccer just to get to experience that rivalry in a different sense…hopefully this can be an opportunity for them to come see what we got and then they become women soccer fans.”

Auburn is in the middle of a lengthy drought against their arch rivals, having not defeated Alabama since 2019, which, coincidentally, is also the last time the football team walked off the field with an Iron Bowl victory. Auburn Undercover asked Brown how the team practices keeping their emotions in check during an emotional game.

“I think it’s a good pressure. I think it means that it has meaning and it means something to us which is good. I do think it can get emotional especially it being a big rivalry…we are trying to focus on just playing our game and not let the fans, players, other coaches get in our head…we want to keep our composure and just play our game,” Brown said.

Auburn and Alabama will kick things off from the Auburn soccer complex at 6:30. Admission is free.

Auburn Undercover is an independent Auburn sports media company covering Auburn athletics, recruiting and insider news.