Wiese Ready for Final Go-Round as Cavalier

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — He grew up near the Baltic Sea in Rostock, a city on the northeast coast of Germany, dreaming of a career in professional soccer. Paul Wiese rose through the club ranks, playing for FC Hansa Rostock and Bonner SC, but when the desired offer wasn’t forthcoming, he began considering his other options.

“I wanted to make decisions for my life and not be depending on someone else, some GM or whatever,” Wiese recalled this week.

His best friend in Rostock, Thore Boehm, was headed to the United States to play college soccer, and Wiese decided to explore that possibility. In the summer of 2020, he began working with Vista Athletics, a Germany-based organization that helps match promising soccer players with colleges in the U.S. That fall, the University of Virginia’s coaching staff contacted Wiese.

“We jumped on a call,” he said, “and I think three days later I committed, because my agency was like, ‘That’s a no-brainer. UVA is a great place.’ ”

Players with backgrounds like that of Wiese make ideal recruits, Virginia head coach George Gelnovatch said. “Their whole life they’ve been working toward becoming a professional soccer player. They’ve had a great upbringing in terms of the clubs that they play for, the coaches that they’ve been around, the intensity and the properness of it all. They know how to take care of their body and the discipline it takes. Paul was one of those guys.”

Wiese enrolled at the University in the summer of 2021, and he’s been a fixture in the Wahoos’ lineup almost from day one. His senior season begins Thursday at Klöckner Stadium, where No. 13 Virginia hosts Rider at 7 p.m.

As usual, fans can find Wiese at right wingback. He’s started 52 of the 55 games in which he’s appeared for the Cavaliers.

“He’s been an important piece,” Gelnovatch said, and that’s reflected in the fact that Wiese is one of UVA’s captains this season, along with Albin Gashi and Umberto Pelà.

“I’m just grateful and thankful for this chance to represent our program as a captain,” Wiese said. “There are so many great players in the past that represented our team. Our program is so historic and so successful. It’s just a great honor to be a captain.”

Newcomers (transfers and first-years) make up about half of the Hoos’ roster, and they’ve benefited from the leadership Wiese, Gashi and Pelà have shown this summer. The captains have “been excellent,” Gelnovatch said. “That’s one of the strong points of the team.”

Wiese said he tries to foster “a good vibe in the locker room, on the field, off the field, and if there are any questions or any way I can help, then I’ll be there [for teammates]. I think there’s certain types of leadership, and I’m more of a friendly leader, I’d say. I’m joking around with them, I’m playing around with them. I don’t really set myself off from them just because I wear the [captain’s] badge or whatever. I just try to make everyone feel comfortable and be themselves, because if you feel comfortable I think you can perform your best.”

He has yet to score a goal as a Cavalier, but Wiese has 17 career assists. He led the team in that category in 2021, with six, and in 2023, with eight.

Other players are more proficient on free kicks, but Wiese’s “service in the run of play is as good as I’ve seen from a player here,” said Gelnovatch, who’s heading into his 29^th season as Virginia’s head coach.

“It’s part of what escalated him to the level he was playing in Germany, the level of ball that he could whip in. Half of Stephen Annor’s goals last year were headers, and they were crosses from Paul. It’s not like Paul is just kicking the ball there; he can find you. He can drop the ball right on your head. Plus, he can pass. It’s not just aerial balls. He’s a good, technical player who understands the game, knows how to pass, knows how to move.”

The 5-foot-8, 150-pound Wiese said he believes “assists are underrated. An assist is as good as a goal. It’s the same with blocks on the goal line. It’s basically prevented a goal. I think that should almost be a stat for defenders. My role models growing up were always Messi and Marcelo. Messi obviously is a goal scorer too, but he was also a great assist guy, and the same with Marcelo.”

Growing up in Germany, Wiese said, before practices most of his teammates would be “in the box, trying to score, and I was always the guy asking the strikers if I could cross it so they could hit it. I just enjoyed that too.”

He’s majoring in global development studies at UVA, with a minor in social entrepreneurship. When he came to the U.S., Wiese said, he was determined to leave with a college degree, and he’s on track to graduate next spring.

“Even if I had had, let’s say, the opportunity to go pro last year, I wouldn’t have done it, because I want to finish my degree,” said Wiese, who turns 24 next week. “If I have a chance to [play professionally in the spring of 2025], obviously it’s a different situation, because I could finish it online. So I would certainly do that. But [graduating] was my main goal.”

He’d love to play professionally in the United States, but if an attractive opportunity doesn’t arise after this season, “I think I have to make the decision that soccer is over for me,” Wiese said, “because I wouldn’t finish my degree till May, which means I would essentially stop playing for like five, six months. And I think UVA presents so many good opportunities with networking and alumni network that getting a job here or an internship or something like that after graduation and using my time I have here to enter the workforce would probably be better for my future than just trying to find a club back home. I have a couple of friends that play fourth or third league [in Germany], but that’s not what I want to do anymore. I feel like I have to use the greater opportunity UVA presents me. If it’s soccer, great. If it’s not soccer, I can live with that, definitely.”

He started learning English as a young boy in Germany. Still, Wiese said, he was “pretty rusty” when he arrived at UVA in 2021. “There was lot of thinking between the sentences, between the words. I was just talking to my teammates the whole time. You have to be a little open to make mistakes. It’s still not perfect, but it’s all right now.”

He smiled. “Once you start dreaming and thinking in English, you’re basically fluent.”

Multiple languages can be heard in the Cavaliers’ locker room. Wiese has teammates from such countries as Italy, Sweden, Denmark and Argentina, as well as Canada, New Zealand and England.

“I enjoy it a lot,” Wiese said. “I’ve got friends all over the world now, technically. You meet people from everywhere, even in the U.S. You’ve got guys from Texas, from L.A., from San Francisco, from New York. I just enjoy that, it’s so fun, and we all have this hobby that connects us and this goal at the end of the year. So we’re all kind of moving in the same direction, and you have just different cultures, different influences from all over the world, which is great.”

The UVA program has a storied history, with seven NCAA titles. After missing the NCAA tournament in back-to-back seasons, the Cavaliers earned the No. 4 seed in 2022 and the No. 7 seed in 2023, when they were ousted in the round of 16.

With so many newcomers, his latest team might not gel immediately, Gelnovatch said, “but it’s promising. We just need to figure it out. We have some figuring out to do. It’s going to take me some time—I have to admit that—but there are some pieces.”

In the meantime, Virginia will rely heavily on its core of veterans, a group that includes Wiese, Gashi, Pelà, Reese Miller, Daniel Mangarov and Kome Ubogu.

Wiese knows this is his final college season, but he’s not putting extra pressure on himself.

“There always pressure in sports and once hopefully we reach the postseason, obviously there will be pressure,” he said, “but I don’t really try to think about how this is my last chance or this is my last game, my last year, whatever. I just try to enjoy it and see how far we go. Like I said, whatever the outcome is at the end of the season for me personally, either I make it pro or not, I’m fine with both. So I just try to enjoy it and focus on the good things.”

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