Maryland men’s soccer’s Luca Costabile didn’t know anything about college soccer in June. He played for an academy in his home country of Denmark and spent a year in the fourth division of Italy before former teammates who made the switch to the United States convinced him to listen to offers from American colleges.

Costabile signed to a recruiting agency and was contacted by the Terps just more than a month before he would need to report for college soccer’s preseason training in August. After taking a call from coach Sasho Cirovski, he asked his friend what he knew about Maryland and received an enthusiastic response.