Vasily Yakimkin joined Harvard University men’s soccer as a goalkeeper coach in the spring of 2021 and enters his second season with the program in 2022-23 after serving as a volunteer assistant men’s soccer coach at Boston University for three seasons from 2017-19.
In 2021, Yakimkin helped lead the Crimson to eight more wins than the previous competitive season as Harvard finished above .500 (8-5-3, 3-2-2 Ivy) for the first time since 2016, placing fourth in the conference standings. Harvard closed the year on a three-game Ivy League winning streak and went 4-1-1 in its last six games. He helped Ivy League Rookie of the Year Alessandro Arlotti as one of four All-Ivy selections.
With BU, Yakimkin’s main responsibility with the Terriers was to oversee the goalkeeping aspect of the program. Under his guidance, goalkeeper Michael Bernardi was selected to All-Conference Second and Third Teams in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Collectively, goalkeepers posted 14 shutouts in 55 matches while reaching the conference playoffs twice.
Prior to joining BU, Yakimkin served as a goalkeeper/assistant coach at UMass Boston, taking on the role with the men’s soccer program for the 2014 season. He helped the program win three consecutive Little East Conference titles and make three NCAA appearances, including reaching the round of sixteen in 2016, where the team fell to the eventual national champion Tufts University. Upon the end of the 2016 campaign, the program was ranked 16th in the NSCAA’s national poll. Under his guidance, goalkeepers combined for 28 shutouts in 66 games, earned an All-Conference Second Team award in 2014, and posted the program’s all-time best 0.67 goals against average in the 2016 season.
At the youth level, Yakimkin serves as a goalkeeping coordinator for the Boston Bolts, a full academy club based in Newton, Mass., where he oversees all aspects of the goalkeeping program, including implementation of age-segmented curriculum, organization of trainings, camps and clinics, talent identification, and coaching education. Yakimkin holds an Advanced National Goalkeeper Coaching Diploma from the United Soccer Coaches and is currently working towards the USSF C coaching license.
Yakimkin resides in Boston with his wife Katarina and daughter Veronica.
