We must admit it’s often hard to come by timely and complete news regarding the Islanders. The team doesn’t post news items often enough on the official website, so fans are left with either waiting for one of the major Puerto Rican newspapers writing about the team, visiting one of several blogs, or exchanging information on the fan forum. This of course makes it difficult when trying to look at the whole picture of things, even more so when controversial issues are involved.
In recent Islanders history, there’s probably no greater controversy than Colin Clarke’s decision last Sunday to field mostly bench players for the Final of the Caribbean Football Union’s (CFU) Club Championship against Trinidadian side W Connection. We had the USL-1 2008 Final loss to Vancouver – and while there was some criticism of Clarke’s handling of the game, most of the controversy was actually on how the USL snubbed Puerto Rico to host the Final. Then we had the extremely defensive tactic in the second-leg of the CCL semi-final against Cruz Azul. Yet throughout these near-victories, and unlike the CFU game, most fans were not questioning Clarke’s goals. Last Sunday, when fans saw the starting lineup that took the field in the CFU Final, there was a collective gasp of incredulity as to what was going through Clarke’s mind. Judging from the news coming out this week, the fans weren’t alone.
For some background, visit the Islanders blog @ TheOffside, where our friend BoriQa has translated an excerpt from one of the several related news items that came out this week in the Puerto Rican newspapers.
Essentially, Colin Clarke’s decision has confused several sectors of the Islanders community. The soccer columnists in both El Nuevo Dia and Primera Hora wrote about the confusing tactic employed by Clarke and also went into the controversy brewing in the online Islanders community. The fans took to the online forums to criticize the coach and demand explanations, something that only worsened when the administrators of the forum of the official team website decided to delete and censor the many comments that questioned and criticized Clarke.
Finally, and somewhat surprisingly, it seems that some people in the team’s management are also looking for answers. Isaac Nieves (Vice-President of Operations) was quoted in El Nuevo Dia as saying: “I do not agree with the way the game was played. 30 countries participate in this event and to be the champion has its merits, a value. Even if they are regional titles, they are important and we need to make an effort to win them”. Nieves also admitted that he thought it was a questionable decision to bench most of the team’ starters and added: “We should not make the decision to protect some players at the expense of results… teams are valued by their victories. Nobody remembers semi-finalists or second place finishers”. The VP then said that Clarke has the trust of the front office but not before adding that they could be calling on the coach to answer some questions about his performance in the Caribbean tournament.
For better or for worse, Colin Clarke had always been a pretty reserved coach – so his comments to the press tend to be brief and to the point. He refused to comment on the public criticism surrounding his decision and simply said that he was disappointed in not winning the game, as he believes the Islanders were the better team but could not finish with the win.
In our previous comments about the game, we said that only Clarke knew the reasons for choosing the starters he did and that it was very hard to judge how the team fared because none of the games were televised. It now seems that there were some external factors that were not really apparent at first due to the lack of news.
Via Islandersfc.net comes some more information on the two games played in Trinidad.
The semi-final match against the Haitian side seems to have been very physical, to the point were several players were injured; Addlery was hit in the jaw and Jagdeosingh in the groin. The game was also very fast and tiring – worsened by the fact that it had to go into over-time. In addition, the game was played on artificial turf, something that made it even harder on the players. Finally, it seems that several players were not 100% physically and that some of them couldn’t rest very well the night before the Final.
All this of course makes it seem like Clarke fielded the players he saw in the best condition to take on the Trinidadian side. Still, it’s difficult to believe that pretty much all the regular starters could not have taken the field against W Connection, but now that’s a matter of speculation. What we do know is that it appears that Clarke did go into this match with a clear desire to win, something that some fans questioned – arguing that the coach had gone into the CFU competition looking for the Champions League ticket and not really caring about the trophy. But now there seems to be some indication that the coach did indeed come out with the mission to win the Final but several things conspired against the team.
As has often been the case, it was reported that the refereeing was horribly lopsided against the Islanders – so much so that Clarke was ejected from the game during the first half for arguing with the referees. Then it seems that the two goals scored by W Connection were lucky shots that would have probably gone in regardless of who was on the pitch. As to the Islanders themselves, apparently there were several missed opportunities and plays were not being completed effectively.
So what does this all mean? Colin Clarke wanted to win and wasn’t dismissive of the CFU Final and the team ran into some back luck and worse officiating. Still, while we can understand how the situation might have called for many starters to be benched – it’s still very difficult to understand why the Islanders team that took the pitch had to be composed essentially completely of bench players.
The controversy surrounding this match should be an indication of two things: first, the need for further transparency and timely information from the team, and second, that Clarke’s decisions in critical matches will be that much more under scrutiny in the future. Let’s hope that something good comes out of all this. In the end, the match was lost and now it’s time to focus again on the USL and the upcoming Champions League.
[...] controversy from Pasion Naranja! I agree with the article. There are definitely communication issues with the Islander, their [...]