When the UC Santa Barbara men’s soccer team takes on the Indiana Hoosiers tonight at Harder Stadium, they hope to draw the largest collegiate soccer audience in NCAA history….

Story via Daily Sound

“Sure, Harder Stadium (17,000 capacity) is not the Los Angeles Coliseum (93,607 capacity), but it’s not supposed to be. It’s Harder Stadium and at Harder Stadium, soccer is king.

The current attendance record for a soccer match was set on Sept. 27, 1987 when 12,224 people watched a match between Fresno State and San Francisco. The next best mark is 11,075, which was set on Oct. 17, 2008 in San Luis Obispo when the Gauchos took on Cal Poly.

Despite having played in four of the top 10 most heavily attended regular season Division 1 NCAA soccer matches of all time, and hosting three of them, the Gauchos have yet to draw a crowd larger than 10,000. According to a news release from the UCSB Athletic Department, the largest soccer crowd to ever assemble in Harder Stadium is 9,749, who watched a double-overtime, 0-0 tie last Nov. 5 against Cal Poly.

The Gauchos’ largest crowd this season came on Sept. 22 in an exhibition match against the Mexican under-17 national team.

The No. 11 ranked Gauchos, who have a 6-2-1 record, last faced No. 8 Indiana in the 2004 College Cup Final, which the Hoosiers won on penalty kicks. The Gauchos’ 2004 team will be honored tonight, as will the school’s 1979 men’s water polo team, which captured the NCAA title that year.

The game starts at 8 p.m. and is being broadcast nationally on the Fox Soccer Channel.”