Things are looking up these days.
With last Sunday's victory over the Portland Timbers we look ahead to The Puerto Rico Islanders.
Puerto Rico split the season series with Vancouver with a pair of draws. P.R. are barely made the playoffs this year after only winning 1 of their final 7 matches and finished their campaign with a record of 9-11-10, just barely staying ahead of a terrible Miami FC club.
While P.R. have played so poorly in the Deuce they have continued to remain one of the toughest teams to beat in the Champions League. They are the masters of the home and away system. Having recently beat MLS powerhouse LA Galaxy spirits are running high on the Island. This plays into their hands as our playoff system is also home leg, away leg.
The Islanders bring an attack that features a few skilled players but nothing like what we saw with Portland, they will not be nearly as physical either. I would imagine that Davide Chiumiento will get to see a little more time on the pitch as we will be looking to maintain possession for more of the game rather then constantly attacking in the way we played Portland in the first leg.
It will be a good test for Ethan Gage who will continue to fill in for the injured Wes Knight at Right Back. Its obvious that the kid has the physical abilities but we will see how he matches up with a far more tactical opposition. P.R. Like to get the ball into scoring position and hammer the ball on net as often as possible. They managed 20 shots combined in the 2 legs against Rochester. They drew 37 fouls combined. Now as I didn't manage to see the game usually that many fouls is a testament to how the other team begins to get frustrated by not having the ball. I think it will be very interesting to see which lineup takes the field in Bayamon today as Teitur will have spent all week thinking about which guys are going to turn the ball over the least. I'm going to say this is the time where Terry Dunfield steps up and really makes his presence felt.
I wouldn't expect a really exciting game, but you never know this is the playoffs and anything can happen.
Jonathan Fana will be the player to watch for P.R. all the magic starts with him supposedly.
Game Starts at 5 Thursday
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