BERKELEY – This could be Nonso Adimabua's best season with the California men's soccer team.
 
An imposing, 6-foot-4 striker now in his fifth collegiate season, Adimabua was back wearing his familiar No. 10 jersey and mugging for the camera on media day Monday and enjoying time with his teammates on the first day of training Tuesday, as the Golden Bears began their third season under head coach Leonard Griffin.
 
In his second year at Cal in 2023, Adimabua earned spots on the All-Pac-12 Second Team and the United Soccer Coaches All-Far West Region Third Team after helping lead Cal to seven wins, which more than doubled its win total of 2022. He was eligible to be selected in the MLS SuperDraft in December but, unlike fellow current Bears Wyatt Meyer and Kevin Carmichael, was not chosen.
 
Still, Adimabua could have left the Bears to pursue a professional soccer career – Cal even celebrated him on Senior Day last fall just in case – but the Asaba, Nigeria, product decided to return.
 
"First of all, I do have a few classes I have to finish," Adimabua, a political economy major, explained. "Second of all, we did well last season and I thought about it, and I thought this program is only going to get better. I should finish my classes and play one more year with the team and have an even better last year in general."
 
Adimabua's connection with Griffin was a factor. Griffin originally recruited Adimabua to the University of San Francisco, where he coached the forward for one season.
 
"I look up to him and learn so much from him," Adimabua said. "Knowing he's a great coach and a great father, I want to stick around and learn a lot from him and grow also as a person. He recruited me and knows my family, and I love everything he does."
 
Griffin is happy about his protégé's return. 
 
"I'm excited," Griffin said. "He's always been a pivotal point of our attack. He draws so much attention on the field. Obviously, off the field, I've known him for a long time. He's a student-athlete with high character, which is very valuable both on and off the field. Maybe he had a few opportunities to try and play past this level, but I think that's the power of the Cal degree and what a degree from UC Berkeley means. I'm so glad he's back and will graduate. He's setting himself up to be successful, whether that's in soccer or outside of soccer."
 
During the offseason, Adimabua continued to prepare for a possible pro career. He played for the San Francisco Glens in USL League Two – a developmental league for aspiring pro players – scoring four goals for the club, which also featured Cal teammates Marco Brougher, Santiago Hopkins, Kai Djerbaka and Allan Juarez. He participated in the Path2Pro Combine to get a sense of his future prospects and was named the MVP of the event. Adimabua also went on trial with a few European clubs.
 
"It's important for any player to go and create as many options for himself as he can," Griffin said. "That's what we want for him – to open as many doors as possible. If his goal is to play professionally, we want to do anything in our power to try to help him with that. We're excited for him to have a really great season this year and hopefully a lot of good things happen for him in soccer after college."
 
Along with his 2023 accolades, Adimabua was named the WCC Freshman of the Year in the spring of 2021, when he tallied three goals and five assists, and to the All-WCC First Team twice – including in the fall of 2021, when he scored five goals and one assist – during his time as a Don. Prior to his first season at Cal in 2022, he was named to the United Soccer Coaches NCAA Division I Players to Watch list for forwards.
 
Adimabua's goalscoring has been down somewhat at Cal – he notched two goals and one assist in 2022 and one goal and three assists in 2023. But he impressed the Pac-12 and regional coaches enough with his overall play to earn kudos last year, when he drew plenty of defensive attention to create attacking opportunities for his teammates.
 
"I feel it comes down to my intention of what I want, and my goal is to win a game," Adimabua said. "That's the important thing I want for the team. Yes, I do want to score goals, but my first priority is for the team to win. If I see my teammate in the right position, I'll definitely give him the ball to score. I'm going to try to get as many goals as I can this year, and I pray it'll be different moving forward, but my first priority is for the team to win."
 
"He's obviously more than capable of scoring goals," Griffin said. "We continue to field a strong team around him. The more we do that and the more everyone learns our process as a staff, going into our third year, it's only going to benefit each individual player, with Nonso included in that. This year we do hope the floodgates open for him. What we and everyone are hoping for is that he's saving the best for last."
 
Adimabua and the Bears play two exhibitions – at home against UC Davis on Sunday and at San Francisco on Aug. 16 – before opening the 2024 season against Denver on Aug. 22 at 4:30 p.m. PT at Edwards Stadium.
 
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