Setting the tone for a season starts in the first game.

For the Bruins, that test will come against a challenging opponent.

UCLA men’s soccer will travel to No. 11 Virginia on Thursday to open the season at Klöckner Stadium. The Westwood squad played three exhibition games to prepare for the year, going 2-1 through the matchups.

“I have noticed in these three exhibition games that when people play us, they play their best game,” said freshman defender Marcus Jackson. “They’re up to the challenge and ready to fight back. So right now the transition is definitely being grounded, representing who we are, but also remembering every time someone plays us, they’re going to play. They’re going to give us their best games.”

Exhibition matchups allow team members to build cohesion and learn to play with one another, key for a squad that returns only 12 players and boasts 17 new Bruins.

Senior defender Tre Wright, who was drafted 33rd overall in the 2026 MLS SuperDraft but chose to return to Westwood, has taken on a leadership role as a four-year Bruin. Wright started in 18 games and appeared in all 19 last season, bringing valuable experience to the younger players.

“When I was coming up, the biggest thing that made a difference for me was feeling comfortable and welcomed by my teammates,” Wright said. “As an older guy on the team, one of my biggest responsibilities is making sure younger guys who are not as experienced at the college level or with the team – it’s bringing them into everything, making them feel comfortable and happy with the guys.”

The Bruins opened the 2025 season with a 0-3-2 record before catching their stride toward the start of Big Ten play. The biggest issue was a lack of scoring, with just 11 goals coming in the first 13 games compared to 21 in the last six.

Despite entering the Big Ten tournament as the lowest seed in the competition, 2-0 and 5-0 victories in the semifinal and final, respectively, allowed UCLA to walk away with its second conference title in the past three seasons.

With consistent goalscoring, the Bruins concluded the season with five wins through their last six games, their only loss through this frame coming from penalty kicks in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The strong conclusion to the year brought the squad’s final record to 8-6-5.

“We didn’t score a lot of goals early, and that’s where our record wasn’t very good last year, so (we’re) doing work to try to be good in all facets of the game,” said coach Ryan Jorden. “So hopefully we position ourselves to score a few goals early, and hopefully that translates to winning a couple of the early games in a manner that we maybe didn’t a year ago.”

Virginia is coming off a 12-2-5 season that ended in an upset loss to UNC Greensboro in penalty kicks in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The Cavaliers did not drop a single game on their home field in 2025, while the Bruins went 3-5-2 when playing away.

A win over the top-15 squad could raise the bar for the currently unranked Bruins. If the Westwood squad is able to find its scoring stride earlier this season than last, a more successful year could be on the horizon.

“We’ve won two conference titles in three years,” Jorden said. “Our goal would be to win a third in four years and to try to have a team that’s capable of doing that in one of the two best conferences in the country. Those are the aspirations that players have, and when you’ve got those, that means that they’ve got a real determination to try to get better constantly, week in and week out. And as a coach, that’s really what you want from your players.”