Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our sports newsletter here.

Carlos Zambrano has taken hundreds of corner kicks in his life. The star midfielder’s routine has become fairly simple. He sets the ball close to the byline. Sometimes he gets away with leaving it a yard or two off the arc. He takes a few steps back. He typically lifts both arms — signalling he’s aiming toward the back post. Then he hits it.

On Sept. 23 against Colgate, Sachiel Ming won Syracuse a corner from the left side. Zambrano set the ball a yard off the arc, lifted his arms and whipped it in. It didn’t find the head of any of his teammates, as he’d intended. Instead, it flew into the net. An Olimpico — one of the rarest goals in the sport.

Zambrano turned to SU’s bench, jumped up and threw his fist in the air. It was the spark of energy the Orange desperately needed.

A month and a half later, Zambrano took the field in Raleigh, North Carolina, for Syracuse’s Atlantic Coast Conference Championship Quarterfinal against No. 3 seed NC State. In the 69th minute, he slowly walked to the left corner. He placed the ball on the edge of the arc, took three steps back, lifted both arms and smashed the ball into the box.

It flew over his teammates’ heads, blasted off the far post and ricocheted in for a goal. Déjà vu.

This time, there was no fist pump. Zambrano calmly turned to his sideline, looked into the stands and stretched out his arms, similar to Jude Bellingham’s signature celebration. Are you not entertained?

The goal instantly brought back flashbacks of his near-identical score versus Colgate. But they couldn’t have come at two more different times for Syracuse.

When Zambrano first struck against Colgate, the Orange were on a four-game losing streak. They’d scored five goals in eight games. From the outside, making the NCAA Tournament would’ve been a laughable thought.

His second Olimpico — part of Syracuse’s 3-0 domination of No. 5 NC State — marks the peak of SU’s turnaround, giving it a convincing case to return to the dance for the first time since 2023.

“We’re close,” SU head coach Ian McIntyre said before Syracuse’s ACC Championship first-round matchup with Virginia Tech. “If we win enough games to be in the conversation to win (the ACC Championship), we would have done enough (to make the NCAA Tournament) against the caliber of teams that we’re playing.”

“If you’d have said that to me a month ago, we would have bitten your hand off,” he added.

Ilyan Sarech | Design Editor

It would’ve been a reasonable reaction. Syracuse didn’t belong in the NCAA Tournament conversation in September — let alone ACC Championship title contention. Not when the Orange were losing games to Duquesne. And certainly not when SU couldn’t score on 49 consecutive shots across three games in early September, part of its slowest offensive start under McIntyre.

What happened Sunday was the furthest thing from what Syracuse displayed in the early going. It exploited the nation’s best defense in a way no team has this season. The Wolfpack allowed three goals in their first 15 games of the season. Syracuse scored three in one game, via Ming, Zambrano and Chimere Omeze.

It took the Orange 53 shots to score their first three goals this year. It took them six to score three on Sunday. SU didn’t score in the second half in its first six games of the season. All three goals against the Wolfpack came in the second.

Syracuse was nearly flawless defensively, too. Goalie Tomas Hut racked up a career-high nine saves, denying NC State — which totaled 3.15 expected goals, per Sofascore — any offensive momentum.

SU’s backline has undoubtedly been its most consistent area this year, but it even had hiccups at times, notably in losses to then-No. 8 Stanford, then-No. 19 Duke and Pitt. Sunday’s clean sheet — Syracuse’s ninth of the season — is a new highlight for the unit.

Those growing pains were expected. SU lost nearly half its roster over the offseason. But its early performances were far from the standard McIntyre’s set at Syracuse.

“That’s the challenge of what we do, is trying to be better. That’s why we coach, and that’s why we play, is to try to keep growing,” McIntyre said. “Sometimes that’s in a season, sometimes that’s in the second half of a season. What we’re trying to do is have the consistency to be competing at the highest level.”

SU certainly hasn’t been consistent in 2025. After producing spotty results through its first three nonconference games, Syracuse endured a four-game winless streak in early September, lowlighted by the Duquesne loss and a draw to New Haven.

“We were sitting at 2-4-2 at the bottom of the table, but we knew we had a good group,” McIntyre said Nov. 4.

Syracuse head coach Ian McIntyre embraces midfielder Carlos Zambrano in SU’s win over then-No. 5 NC State in the ACC Championship quarterfinal Nov. 9. Zambrano scored one of the Orange’s three goals in the upset victory. By Andy Mead | Courtesy of SU Athletics

Everything changed against Colgate. The first half looked like an all-too-familiar tale, as the Orange came up empty on six solid looks. Then Ming won a penalty in the 57th minute, which Zambrano scored to give Syracuse life.

Two minutes later, a Ming shot was saved at the near post. Zambrano took the ball and headed for the corner. What came next kickstarted Syracuse’s improbable turnaround.

“This is the game that we’ve been needing,” Zambrano said postgame. “We know we’re good enough.
We know. Today we showed it.”

Indeed, the win over the Raiders — in which Zambrano scored a hat trick — was just what the Orange needed. They won their next three games, capped with a 2-0 upset win over then-No. 25 SMU, the same squad Syracuse plays in the semifinal Thursday.

The Orange continued to teeter between brilliance and mediocrity over the next few weeks. They dropped consecutive games to Pitt and Cornell before knocking off then-No. 22 UNC and stealing a point from then-No. 4 NC State to close the regular season.

“I like our group and I’m proud of what they’ve gone through to get to where we are now,” McIntyre said. “We’re still not the finished article, but we’re continuing to grow and evolve.”

A first-round win over Virginia Tech proved Syracuse was getting hot at the right time. Sunday’s result showed the Orange are scorching.

It began with Ming’s goal in the 52nd minute. Omeze found the winger darting across the 18-yard box, setting Ming up for a swift left-footed finish. Sixteen minutes later, Michael Acquah’s curled effort was narrowly pushed away by Wolfpack goalie Logan Erb. Zambrano collected the ball and made his way to the corner.

It was a similar situation to SU’s bout with Colgate, albeit at a much bigger stage. The Orange led 1-0 with their opponent breathing down their neck. Zambrano had been Syracuse’s magic man all season. It needed some to beat NC State.

Zambrano prepared for the same pass he’d attempted hundreds of times, the one he even scored a month and a half before. He set the ball down close to the byline. He took a few steps back. He lifted both arms. He struck the ball cleanly, and it found its way inside the back post.

Amid the consistency, everything felt different. For this Syracuse squad, everything is.

This time, Zambrano’s strike wasn’t SU’s spark of light in the dark. It launched an ACC title contender to a signature win. His first Olimpico was the start of Syracuse’s revival. His second showed the Orange are far from finished.

Published on November 10, 2025 at 10:27 pm
Contact Harris: harrispemberton@gmail.com | @HarrisPemb6