They stood there on the sideline, the two coaches with matched intensity yet different ways of portraying it.

For a moment they appeared alike, side-by-side – legs shoulder-length apart, one arm crossed, the other propping up their respective chins.

Together, women's soccer head coach Markus Roeders and associate head coach Frank Pelaez peered out onto the field as their team takes on then-No. 12 Connecticut on Sept. 22 in what would become one of the key turning points in the season.

The Golden Eagles came into the match with a disappointing 2-3-3 record and very little hopes of returning to the NCAA tournament, much less advancing to the final 16 as it had a season ago. This match against a ranked conference foe would either loosen an already weak grip or provide stable, if not solid, footing.

And so the two conspiring coaches surveyed the field together, if only briefly, for a flaw that could be righted or a strength that could be flexed.

Moment gone, the head coach and his chief assistant returned to their distinct mannerisms. Roeders went back to his incessant pacing, arms clasped behind his back, chirping out instructions to his players, while Pelaez resumed his rotation of squatting, then standing with his arms in his jacket pockets, then squatting again.

For most of a back-and-forth first half, the pair's movements were as frenetic as the action on the field, just as they had to be. It is how they effectively get their messages across, always moving, never settling.

"Every day we're happy we have a job," Pelaez said. "We don't know what we would do if we lost this opportunity. We show that excitement to (the players), because when coaches become complacent, that's when things start to crumble."

Pelaez made that statement during preseason training camp, but its truth becomes evident in games such as the one against UConn.

Over the past 18 years, Roeders and Pelaez have formed a relationship that the parameters of coaching could only hope to confine. It is a bond based on loyalty, situated in familiarity and executed toward a common goal.

Teammates under head coach (and former Marquette men's soccer coach) Steve Adlard at UNC-Asheville in 1988, Roeders and Pelaez did not immediately see many similarities in one another, what with the former sporting a mullet and the latter a jerry curl.

"It was a unique situation," Roeders said. "For some reason or another, we ended up being roommates and built connections over time."

After Roeders' playing days ended, he stayed on at UNC-Asheville as an assistant to Adlard and helped coach Pelaez.

It was under Adlard that the future coaches came to understand the keys to maintaining a cohesive and successful soccer team.

"He was a major influence in how we think and how we do things," Pelaez said. "We learned how to get different people from different backgrounds to work together."

Roeders, a native of Idstedt, Germany, and Pelaez, from Cartagena, Colombia, have since evolved into their own separate coaching identities but always remain united in the beliefs that drew them together in the first place.

"What makes us so unique is the trust part that's hard to describe," Roeders said. "He can tell me that something's not going to work, and I won't be offended. I'll be glad he told me. It's the ultimate coaching relationship you can have, and if you look around at a lot of the successful programs in the country, you'll see the same thing."

Today, the two coaches appear as different in personality as they do in height. Roeders, who stands head and shoulders above Pelaez, has more of an eccentric style while his top assistant brings unbridled intensity to the craft of motivation he long ago mastered.

"Markus has more of a crazy personality," junior goalkeeper Laura Boyer said. "He'll get mad, but he's more or less the type that will get you pumped up."

Riding in the team van to its match against North Carolina in Durham on Sept. 15, Roeders' voice sang out the loudest along with whatever pop music happened to be on the mix CD the girls were playing.

"Frank tries to get you emotionally ready," Boyer said. "He always ends his speeches before (the games) with, 'Let's go to work!' It gets our blood pumping."

The assistant coach knows all about work. In Colombia, Pelaez said the coaches have limited resources to work with to be successful, and it was playing under those coaches in those circumstances that taught him if you want it bad, you have to earn it.

"We have never had a losing season (at Marquette), and I don't ever want to taste one," Pelaez said. "I don't expect to ever have a losing season, and I'll do everything in my power to see that it doesn't happen."

Joining him in that effort is Roeders, whose analytical nature balances out Pelaez's more fiery approach. But while the two coaches personalities may appear far apart, the reality lies somewhere in between.

"The more you're around us, the more you see that if my personality is active and (Roeders') is subdued, we know when to switch off without saying it," Pelaez said. "We know how to read each other's body language."

Both coaches admit the players know whom to come to depending on the type of answer they want. Want a diplomatic, long explanation? Head to Coach Roeders. Need the straight-up truth? Coach Pelaez is your guy.

It is the way the two men intertwine their respective personas into wielding successful teams that make nights like Sept. 22 all the more telling.

"They have a bond unlike no other coaches I have ever seen," senior midfielder Michelle Pitzl said. "Markus and Frank trade off ideas, and it's never one above the other."

Marquette would defeat UConn 1-0 in double overtime that night. Fast forward five weeks, and the team stands at 10-5-4 heading into a Big East tournament quarterfinal match Sunday at Valley Fields versus Villanova (15-2-2).

Out on the sidelines they will stand again, two coaches, two styles, one goal.