USL Feature
Friday, September 2, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
If you’d asked people who follow USL regularly who they’d expect to see in the USL PRO Championship Game at the end of the 2011 season, Orlando City would likely have been one of the first teams to be mentioned.
With a talented squad and experienced coach in Adrian Heath, the Lions were one of the league favorites, and lived up to that billing with a regular season title as they lost just once at the Florida Citrus Bowl and three times in the regular season overall.
The same would likely not have been said of the Harrisburg City Islanders, who after missing the playoffs last season had certainly retooled their squad, but were not necessarily thought of as part of the cream of the league as the season began.
Once the season began, though, it became clear that while the City Islanders might not be the favorite in the National Division, they were certainly not going to go down without a fight.
“To be fair I think we get overlooked by a lot of other teams, which is fair enough, there are a lot of good teams in this league,” Harrisburg assistant coach Steven Widdowson said this week. “We just do things the way we always try to do things in Harrisburg, and that’s with that collective mentality, and if you want, even a bit of a chip on our shoulder to go and fight those favorites.”
And so this Saturday’s matchup is a classic between the favorite Lions and the underdog City Islanders. And even though Orlando took a 4-0 victory the last time the two teams met, the Lions certainly won’t be taking Harrisburg lightly. While sporting an impressive 9-1-4 record at home, and an undefeated 15-0-3 record when scoring the first goal this season, All-League defender Rob Valentino is expecting a tough battle from the National Division champions.
“We need to come out and do it, it’s a 90-minute game, it’s going to be a tough one, we know Harrisburg’s not going to just roll over and give it to us,” Valentino said after his side won the American Division crown with a 3-0 win against Richmond this past Saturday. “From Day 1, this was what we set out for. We wanted to be the best in the regular season, which we were, and we want to win the cup, and we’ve put ourselves in that situation.”
While Orlando’s outstanding regular season saw six of its players named to the USL PRO All-League teams this week, Harrisburg had just one player selected, forward Jose Angulo, on the Second Team. But in a way, that epitomizes why the City Islanders have been able to find success this season despite losing key players to injuries and suspensions.
“I think it’s been a lot of our team chemistry, and really the word ‘team’ comes to mind for me with this team, because I don’t see any superstars on this team,” City Islanders defender Anthony Calvano said. “There are a lot of guys who have really played for each other and played through quite a bit of adversity. I’ve obviously been in the league for a couple years now, at least, and I don’t think I’ve been hit with so many different things that have happened to our team.”
Without the services of former University of Maryland duo Drew Yates (ACL) and Jason Herrick (concussion) from the start of the season, and former All-League defender Dustin Bixler (ACL) since the end of June, not to mention the storms and floods that saw the City Islanders have to postpone their first two games this season at the Skyline Sports Complex, Calvano has seen a lot this season.
And yet, he’s also seen something else; a spirit within the squad that reminds him of the club’s 2007 side which brought home a championship.
“I guess I always attribute it to some kind of chemistry, not that we didn’t have some good chemistry with some of the other teams, but every now and then you get a feeling, or you get a feel for a team,” Calvano said. “I know myself and a couple of other players have talked about it this year and the handful of us like me, [David] Schofield, [Brian] Ombiji, Bixler that were around in 2007 kind of got a similar feel to the team this year.”
So now it’s down to the final game of the season, and 90 minutes for the City Islanders to upset the odds.
“I’m sure we’re an underdog there and probably rightfully so because of what Orlando’s done, what they did in recent memory to us there, what they did in the semifinal and what they’ve done throughout the year,” Calvano said. “But I know that we’re a team that can beat anybody on one game and I think we have the ability to do so, so it comes down to Saturday and we’ll see who’s better on that night.”