Islanders Season Opener – The Revenge

By: BoriQa | April 17th, 2009

Revenge time has come early to the Islanders for last year’s 2-1 loss to the Whitecaps in the Final.

The Islanders will face Vancouver tomorrow night at Juan Ramón Loubriel stadium in Bayamón in the Puerto Rican’s season opener, in what some call the 2nd-leg of the 2008 USL Final.

The 2005 & 2006 middle-bottom table (standings) Puerto Rico Islanders lost 4 games in a row to Vancouver. The 2007 playoff quality Islanders tied 2 games that year against the Whitecaps. 2008 was our best season yet, when the championship contender Islanders went undefeated against them with a regular season 1-2-0 [W-T-L] record, defeating Vancouver for the first time ever 1-0 on their last regular season encounter with a late-goal by Noah Delgado on the 89th minute.

That goal by Delgado on the 89th minute against Vancouver gave birth in Puerto Rican Spanish to a new word: the “alajuelazo“. While this new Boricuan Spanish soccer term made reference to a previous Islanders opponent, the Liga Deportiva Alajuelence from Costa Rica in the 2008-09 CONCACAF Champions League, the term itself was coined after the Vancouver win by El Nuevo Dia’s reporter Osman Pérez Méndez.

Below is a quote (translated to English) of Osman’s newspaper article on the Vancouver win:

Last night at the Juan Ramón Loubriel stadium in Bayamón there was another well expected duel, this time between the best two teams in the current USL-1 season, the Puerto Rico Islanders and the Vancouver Whitecaps, and the “Orange Troops” applied the “alajuelazo formula” to the Canadian team with an 89th minute goal that sealed the 1-0 Islander win, before a crowd that once again saw a frenetic game ending finish, celebrating on their feet.

The previous alajuelazo infered in the article, and after which the term was coined, took place just two nights before against Liga Alajuelence. In that game, with the Islanders down 0-1 in the 87th minute, a slow rolling ball into the box was dived on by the goalkeeper at the corner with his momentum carrying him over the line. Kendall Jagdeosingh charged at the play and as the netminder tried to take his hand off the ball so as to not handle it outside the box, the striker stole it, turned and fired it into the far side netting from the right flank of the box to tie the game 1-1.

Then in the 89th minute a lofted free kick from Jonathan Steele was met inside the box by the head of an Alajuelense defender, but the deflection sent the ball backwards toward goal and into the chest of Taiwo Atieno, who made sure to bury this attempt as it dropped to his feet, giving the USL-1 Islanders a 2-1 shocking victory as they held on to down the 2004 CONCACAF Champions Cup winners.

Tomorrow the Whitecaps face this season’s heavy favourites, one of the best 4 teams in the CONCACAF, a Champions League Semifinalist, the best team in the CONCACAF outside of Mexico; the 2009 USL-1 Champions to be Islanders.

To the USL-1 teams, watch out, an unstopable train is coming; to the Whitecaps, move over, you are the first ones in the way…