Back on the USL-1 Project horse, and he's a temperamental beast. Luckily, we're headed down the home stretch, with just a few more teams to go, and I certainly want to see this project through.
Next up is the Puerto Rico Islanders, darlings of the American soccer scene after a wonderful run into the CONCACAF Champions League semi-finals. The Islanders are an intriguing team, one that I could easily see myself supporting. There are bound to be a few problems with their candidacy though, so lets get right to the scoring and see where things land.
Geography
Puerto Rico is an island in the Caribbean. That's just about all I know about the place, other than that the national language is Spanish, baseball is extremely popular, and travelers are warned not to leave San Juan's airport when traveling through. Which is the extent of my experience with Puerto Rico; a brief layover at the San Juan airport. I do like the idea of supporting a team from an island though (have no idea why that might be), and I'm not adverse to the working through the language issue. All in all, not a bad start for the Islanders.
Score: 6
History
After a little digging (i.e. the Islanders wiki page), I discovered that there have been two iterations of the Puerto Rico Islanders. The first played seven games in the old USISL back in 1995 before owner Joe Serralta moved the team to Houston. After lasting exactly one game there, the team folded. The second edition has obviously been much more successful, with 2009 being their sixth season in the A-League/USL First Division. The Islanders have gotten increasingly better over the course of the last five years, with a runner-up league finish last season. Add to that the recent run in the CCL (the Islanders entered through the Caribbean Football Union Club Championship) and the Islanders history just gets better all the time. It's certainly not a long history, but it is fairly impressive.
Score: 6
Name/Colors
There are some out there that just can't get their heads around the color orange on a soccer kit. I'm not one of them. I'm in the bag for orange, and I love the colors the Islanders sport. The logo is nice; modern but not overly cheesy, works in the flag of the island, and just generally comes off well. I can't possibly argue with the name "Islanders", and as long as the people of Puerto Rico are fine with, so am I. A solid category for the club on the whole, best of the bunch so far.
Score: 8
Supporter Passion
I've been personally entreated to follow the Islanders by a few people, and I'm generally impressed by their support. Average attendance is supposedly between 4000 and 6000 (didn't have time to check for hard numbers), which is definitely a good sign. The club has their share of supporters groups, and while I can't really get a sense of them through Spanish-only online sources, there certainly appears to be strong backing for the club. I'm struggling a bit with the idea of following a team whose website I can't really understand, but I here an English version is coming soon, so perhaps I'll overlook the problem.
A brief display of Puerto Rico's support:
Score: 7
Total Score: 27
Fair score for the Islanders, I think, and it will serve them well in the final competition. I'm going to have to dig a little deeper on all of these teams, and this first round of scoring is a good starting point.
A few links I used for the Islanders overview:
Puerto Rico Islanders Official Site (Spanish only)
Islanders Wikipedia Page
Islanders at TheOffside.com
Pasion Naranja! (Orange Passion) An Islanders Blog
The Islanders fit nicely into the table, which now looks like this:
Montreal Impact----------30
Austin Aztex-----------------29
Minnesota Thunder-----27
Puerto Rico Islanders---27
Carolina RailHawks-----22
Cleveland City Stars-----20
Charleston Battery-------18
Miami FC---------------------18
The remaining clubs:
Rochester Rhinos
Portland Timbers
Vancouver Whitecaps
Close to the end now, with just two northwest sides and the Rhinos to go. I'd like to get to the next round of the process (still not sure what the will be, and I'll also need to work in the voting) by the middle of the week, so perhaps I'll knock out the remaining clubs here in the next couple of days.
As always, please give me feedback; there's so much I (and many others) don't know about USL, and anyone with knowledge should certainly share.
