Canton’s Mohamad Miri works on thinking the game before playing it. “It takes that right moment,” he said. “Once you get in that right moment, you’ll score that goal.”
If you wonder why Mohamad Miri is a marked man, just go to a Canton soccer game.
You won’t be able to take your eyes off him.
Miri, a senior, is Canton’s striker, but that is a misnomer. He is Canton’s leading scorer and he does play in the front row, but there are times he is also part point guard, staying back and directing his teammates’ moves as they close in on the opposing goal.
He points to a spot and you wonder why he wants a guy there, but seconds later Miri gets the ball and sends a perfect pass to a teammate in the spot where he directed him and a shot on goal is taken.
Then there is the fact that at 6-feet, 182-pounds, Miri looks like someone who would be a linebacker in the other brand of football.
“His presence, his size at a high school game, a lot of people can be intimidated by it,” said Livonia Franklin coach Mike Bona. “Most of all it’s physicality and his ability to draw defense even if he’s not part of the play. He’s good in open space. I think, from knowing him from club soccer as well, he strikes the ball unbelievably well.”
Heading into Thursday’s KLAA championship game, Miri had 22 goals and five assists for Canton (15-1-2), ranked No. 2 in Division 1.
By any standard of measure, Miri is having an excellent season. He is also playing for the season he didn’t have last fall.
A year ago, Canton was preparing to defend the state title it won when Miri was one of only two sophomores on the club. But before he had the opportunity to play a minute of his junior year, Miri’s season was finished while playing in a pick-up game at High Velocity on April 11, 2015.
“I did a step over,” he said. “I planted my foot and my knee blew out, just like that. It was a freak accident.”
As he fell, Miri knew something was seriously wrong.
“I think it was the most painful thing,” he said. “I heard something pop as I was falling to the floor. I couldn’t walk. As I was falling to the ground, I said I was hurt something big, because I’ve never gotten injured like this in my life. Never.”
A family doctor checked out the knee and said everything was fine. The next time Miri played, he wore a brace on the knee, but when he shifted his weight his knee buckled and he knew it was serious.
Surgery to repair a torn ACL was performed on May 4 — and Miri’s junior season was gone.
The surgery crippled him physically and mentally. He attended all of Canton’s games, but he was in a terrible place, unable to play. He about lost his mind when he was forced to sit through Canton’s 2-0 loss to Rochester Adams in last year’s Division 1 state championship game.
It was so painful because Miri remembered what it was like to play and help his team win the state title the year before.
“That year was so good,” he said. “Every single game was just intense. I was a sub at that moment, so when I got on the field it was really exciting. It was the best year I ever had in soccer. By far the most competitive year, the most fun year, the most enjoyable year.”
Miri was a key contributor on the field on that team, but also off the field as well. You couldn’t possibly miss him before the games even began.
“Even though he was a sophomore, he was the one in the middle of the huddle trying to get everyone motivated,” said Canton coach Mark Zemanski. “That was very unusual. I had a lot of good senior players and they deferred to him to motivate them.”
On most teams, sophomores are seen, but not heard. They are usually the ones on the outside of the huddle, not the guy in the middle getting everyone else geeked.
“I’ve always been that energetic kid who’s trying to like help my team out to help them win the game,” Miri said. “I’ve always been that hype man for all my teams. I’m kind of the guy that gets my team hyped up before the game.”
The road to recovery was long and difficult for Miri. He began working out with the Canton team late last season, hoping to be able to play in the state tournament, but he wasn’t healthy enough to get on the field. The muscle atrophy he suffered was difficult to rebuild, which led to intense rehab sessions.
“It took me about nine months to get the muscle back,” he said. “Even when I came back, it took me awhile to get back into it. Even in November, I still wasn’t anywhere near the player I am now.”
It took Miri until late in the spring season with the Michigan Jags to begin to feel like himself again.
“I wasn’t scoring any goals, I was just getting back into the rhythm of the game,” Miri said. “Around May or early June, I really started to get hot again, like how I usually play. I started to get the focus back; I started to get my athleticism back, my speed back. That’s when I really started to make a difference.”
Over the course of the summer Miri competed at various college camps, hoping to catch the eye of Division I coaches who hadn’t seen him play since his sophomore season.
Miri also led captains’ practices through the summer and regained his touch on the ball, which makes him lethal around the net.
“He has a very good way of moving off the ball to get in position to receive the ball,” said Zemanski. “Once he’s facing the goal, he’s a very dangerous player.”
Another reason for Miri’s success this fall has been the addition of Alex Spratte, who played academy soccer last fall. Spratte and Miri began playing together for the Jags when they were sophomores and the two have a certain chemistry working for them.
“Every time I look up, he’s always making the run and I follow through with the ball,” Spratte said. “He’s big and strong. He’s good at taking people on and getting the ball across for me to head it in, or if I give him a good ball, he’ll put it away. He’s got a good shot, too.”
That good shot results in a lot of goals, but there is much more to Miri’s scoring than just his powerful kick. Miri knows how to think the game before he plays it.
“I think that’s soccer IQ — how smart you are in the game,” he said. “You have to move off the ball. I know how to get open. If there is a defender on you, you have to know how to escape him to get open. It takes that right moment. Once you get in that right moment, you’ll score that goal.”
Scoring is what Miri does best, but he is still able to dominate a game even when he is marked by an opponent.
“That’s the moment where you have to give the ball to others because they’re wide open,” he said. “If everybody’s coming my way, I play as a decoy and I give the ball to other people.”
Goals are often scarce in key tournament games, but that just makes the game more appealing to Miri.
“You don’t have to keep scoring like in basketball,” he said. “You could have a horrible game, but as long as you find that one piece of magic and get that one goal, that’s all that matters and that’s the game right there.”