Mudville has nothing on Yale when it comes to brilliant outlooks this Friday, for the Crimson's big winner of this fall, the Varsity soccer team, meets the Bulldog as the odds-on favorite to win its eighth of the year against one defeat. While the football team has had its moments of glory and the cross-country team has wallowed in defeats, wee Scot James MacDonald's booters have amassed the best soccer record in decades.

A win over Yale will give the booters the best percentage column of any Crimson team since the 1945-6 basketball quintet and a tie for the lead of the New England Soccer League. The last time a Harvard team won the New England League was in 1933 when the soccer team under Jack Carr ended up with a poorer season's record than the 1947 team could arrange by winning Friday.

In soccer as in other sports a certain amount of luck is involved. James MacDonald's team has been lucky this year, but sound play has meant more. Sound play in the MacDonald image is not what generally passes as the American type of soccer. A Scot who has coached and played professional soccer since before the First World War, MacDonald has trained his team in the methods of the continental teams.

Emphasizes Finesse

American colleges such as Army, Princeton and Dartmouth play a football-type of game emphasizing bodily contact, speed and long boots. MacDonald decries brutish methods. "You can't win a ball game without controlling the ball," Mac says, "and booting the ball all over the field and banging into peaople doesn't help you get the ball into scoring position."

MacDonald's method is teamwork and the short pass. His dream is to see the Crimson take the ball all the way down the field and deposit it in the goal without letting an opponent touch the spheroid. "That's the way we used to do it in the Leagues."

At the beginning of the season the Crimson did not do so well, but nine weeks have meant improvement. Now the forward line works together with Phil Potter, Carlos Blanco, Kenny Chun, and Manny Aguirre as the keys in the center and Bill Dawson, Johnny Spivak, and Roy Heisler on the outside.

Captain Mavor, Dave Ogden, and Don Louria, the starting halfbacks, set up the plays and unlike most college soccer players are likely to pass instead of socking the ball far in front of the forwards. Mike Scully and Tom Burrowes have developed into capable, sure fullbacks and both have been invited to the Olympic tryouts in Troy on Sunday along with Potter and Aguirre.

Goalie whoop Batchelder still has two more years to play which should mean low goal totals for many future opponents.

Indians Main Stumbling Block

Against Dartmouth, the single booter loss of the season, Coach MacDonald's team abandoned its game and tried to beat the Indians at their own plays. "Every year we seem to play our worst game against Dartmouth," MacDonald says. "Maybe some day we'll learn that the way to beat them is not to commit modified kinds of assault and battery on the playing field." The team now seems to accept the doctrine. One more game will tell.

With three shutouts to their credit, the complete team record so far include: Tufts, 7-0 (Oct. 4); Army, 3-2 (Oct. 10); Amherst, 3-2 (Oct. 18); Dartmouth, 0-23 (Oct.25; M.I.T., 2-1 (Oct. 29); Worcester Polytech, 8-0 (Nov.1); Princeton 2-0 (Nov. 3); and Brown, 3-0 (Nov. 15. The Army and Princeton games went into two overtime periods each.