USL Feature
Thursday, March 17, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
For a country whose national team didn’t participate in qualifying for the 2006 World Cup or enter the 2007 or 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup competitions, the sport of soccer is now certainly growing at a rapid rate in Puerto Rico.
“It’s all happening very quickly, in my opinion,” National team forward Chris Megaloudis said by phone recently. “I’ve been with the Puerto Rican national team for four years now and the difference between four years ago and now is big. I would never have thought any team except for the Islanders would have come and made a professional team, and now you have at least two or three other teams coming through with professional teams, so it’s a lot to say that soccer is growing big-time, and it’s growing really fast in Puerto Rico.”
As quickly as the sport has grown, though, 2011 could be the next springboard for the growth of the sport on the Caribbean island. With River Plate Puerto Rico, Sevilla FC Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico United all competing in USL PRO, and the opportunity for River Plate to advance through the Caribbean Football Union Championships and into the CONCACAF Champions League, the sport’s popularity has a chance to become bigger than it has ever been.
Megaloudis is looking forward to the opportunity he has with River Plate. The 28-year-old joined the side this winter after playing for Sevilla last season and joined his teammates in the Grand Cayman Islands this week ahead of their first-round matchup against Bodden Town. Both games will be played in the Caymans, on Friday and Sunday, with the winner of the two-legged affair advancing to meet Guyana’s Alpha United in the second round.
River advanced to the championship with victory in the SuperCopa DirecTV last season, where it defeated the Puerto Rico Islanders 3-0 on aggregate in the final. Megaloudis said he was impressed with the style River played and was looking forward to being part of the side this year.
“It’s been a long winter here in New York and I’m looking forward to start training and playing some games and being with the team,” Megaloudis said. “I really liked the way that they played. It’s like my style; I think I would fit in well there, but the players that I played against there … are very good players.”
Among those returning from the championship side are forward Yaikel Perez, who scored twice in the final against the Islanders, and one of Megaloudis’ Puerto Rico teammates, Peter Villegas. With a strong returning core, there is a level of expectation at River as the side prepares for the USL PRO season.
“I know they want to go out there and win it all and in my opinion that’s how it should be,” Megaloudis said. “As a soccer player, as a coach and as a manager, you want to see your team win and that’s what it’s all about at this level. I like to stay positive and say that we can win it all and do well this season.”
That sort of success could allow for even more growth, and with the advent of more professional teams on the island that can offer opportunities to younger Puerto Rican players, Megaloudis says the sport should only become more popular.
“I think every professional team that is coming up out of Puerto Rico is going to help the younger kids in Puerto Rico to grow and have a chance to play professional soccer in Puerto Rico,” Megaloudis said. “Soccer was non-existent 15, 20 years ago and now you have a sport where it’s grown so fast that the kids are going to get involved in soccer and it’s going to give them more opportunity.