Pasion Naranja!

We kick-off the 2010 Islanders season with an article by a new contributor, Angel Marrero. Angel is a longtime Islanders fan and can often be found live tweeting Islanders matches here: @amarrero , today he writes about his observations from the Islanders’ series in CFU (Caribbean Football Union) competition vs Haiti’s Racing des Gonaives.

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By Angel Marrero

Question: If the PR Islanders are off to a flying start and (practically) nobody is there to see it, does it make it exciting?

Answer: If you ask the 200-300 people at JRL, then yes!
This past week, the PR Islanders finally started their 2010 champions with a pair of victories over Racing des Gonaives of Haiti in the Second Round of the CFU Club Championship.  The first game this past Friday was won 2-0 with goals from Sandy Gbandi and David Foley.  The second game this past Sunday was won 3-0 with two goals from Joshua Hansen and another by Foley.  And while the victories were great, it was the manner in which the won that was the most important part.

In a phrase: “Organization will set you free!”  Well, it’s either that or Colin Clarke finally decided that the best defense was a good offense…
The Islanders were on the attack for most of the match even when they were down to 10 men due to a red card handed to Osei Telesford for a body check worthy of play-off hockey (probably in retaliation for Racing’s failure to stop play when an Islanders player was down with an injury).  The midfield controlled most of the game with crisp passing, good spacing and overlapping plays and decent set plays.  Foley, Hansen and Alexis Rivera were fairly rampant on the attack and Gbandi had a goal worthy of SportsCenter’s Top 10 Plays.  The new arrivals Joe Salem, Junior Sandoval, Shaka Bangura are a welcome additions to a midfield that was lacking both creativity and control of possession.  The Islanders were much more reliant on passing into space to create shoot opportunities and less on the long-ball tactics of previous years.

And on defense, the Islanders were much more disciplined than on previous years.  Gone was the over-chasing that was characteristic that that prevalent last season.  Instead, the Islanders were able to pressure Racing’s players without losing their shape or leaving gaps that they could exploit.  The back line, especially Marco Velez, were able to clear out practically all of Racing’s attacks, forcing them to shoot from outside the box.  And when the back line did make mistakes (only a couple in both games), Gaudette was his old impenetrable self, preventing two clear goal-scoring opportunities.

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