BATON ROUGE — The LSU soccer team added a second assistant coach to its already gifted staff on Tuesday, as third year head coach George Fotopoulos announced the hiring of Ricardo Zambrano.
“By adding Ricky to our staff, I think that we definitely found the missing piece to the puzzle,” said LSU head coach George Fotopoulos. “He has a great coaching background and his experience as a head soccer coach will be vital to our team. He’ll be a great asset for our program in both the recruiting and planning aspects of our team.”
Zambrano was named an assistant coach by the LSU Athletic Department on Tuesday after heading the men’s team at St. Thomas University for the previous four seasons. In his highly-successful tenure at St. Thomas, Zambrano accumulated a 47-30-3 overall record and led the team to Florida Sun Conference Championship titles in both 1998 and 2000.
St. Thomas finished the season ranked among the NAIA’s top-25 teams in three of Zambrano’s four seasons and in 2000 he piloted the Bobcats to a No. 5 ranking in the NAIA national poll. Zambrano garnered numerous coaching honors at St. Thomas and was named the Florida Sun Conference Co-Coach of the Year in 1998.
“We’re very excited to get Ricky,” Fotopoulos said. “He will not only be a great addition to the soccer program, but he will be an outstanding addition to the LSU Athletic Department as a whole.”
Prior to becoming the head men’s soccer coach at St. Thomas, Zambrano served as the team’s assistant coach from 1995-98. He also honed his coaching skills by leading the Region III team in the United States Soccer Federation Minority Program and by coaching the U-18 Strike Force S.C. team. Zambrano was also a staff coach member for the Florida Youth Soccer Association.
Zambrano earned his bachelor of arts degree in sports administration from St. Thomas University in 1996 and then received his master’s of science degree in Management in the spring of 2000.