When Tony Amato took over the Arizona soccer program in 2013, a long rebuild figured to be ahead.
The UA was coming off a 6-11-3 season and had gone 12-40-7 under the previous head coach. It was a program that was consistently one of the worst in the Pac-12, logging just three winning seasons in its first 19 years of existence.
Then-Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne was well aware of that when he was looking for a new head coach, so initially he had modest expectations for Amato when he lured him away from Stephen F. Austin.