Saturday evening, the second round of the North American Soccer League playoffs kick off in Bayamon, Puerto Rico and Blaine, Minnesota. The Carolina Railhawks and the Puerto Rico Islanders, top two seeds who enjoyed a bye through the first round, re-join the competition. Carolina will face the NSC Minnesota Stars, who snuck into the playoffs but upset FC Tampa Bay 1-0 in a single-leg playoff last week. Puerto Rico will tangle with southeastern rivals the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, who dismantled expansion side FC Edmonton last Saturday by a score of 5-0. The second round is a two-legged series: the second legs will be played next Saturday and the winners will go on to meet for the inaugural NASL championship.
NASL Playoffs Second Round, 2011: Carolina Could Be in Trouble; Is Fort Lauderdale Ready for Another Shock?
With the second round of the NASL playoffs kicking off Saturday, two questions dominate: will the dominant Railhawks finally break their string of futility against Minnesota, and can the Strikers humble the Islanders defense as easily as they did FC Edmonton’s?
A reminder for those wanting to catch the playoff action that all NASL games are streamed live online at nasl.com.
#1 Carolina Railhawks (17W 3D 8L) @ #6 NSC Minnesota Stars (9W 9D 10L), 8:30 PM Eastern, Blaine, MN
How much better were the Carolina Railhawks than the rest of the league? They finished top of the table by two points despite ending the season on a four-game losing streak. They had a +24 goal-differential; second-place was +9. They scored nine more goals than any other team while allowing one fewer than the next-best defensive side. From April 16 to July 3, Carolina played thirteen matches, winning twelve and drawing one. They boast the league's two leading scorers: Pablo Campos with twelve goals and Etienne Barbara with an insane 20.
Barbara’s dominance deserves its own paragraph: 20 goals is the most scored in an American second-division season since Thiago Martins bagged 25 in 2003. Barbara’s eight-goal margin over Campos is the largest gulf between the first- and second-place league scorers in modern American second-division history and the best at any professional level since Mamadou Diallo scored 26 times to Ante Razov’s 18 in the 2000 MLS season. Barbara was a quality scorer in 2010 but in 2011 he’s been in a class of his own.
Against Barbara and Campos, the NSC Minnesota Stars can respond with Simone Bracalello and Devin Del Do. Their eleven combined goals don't add up to Campos on his own and as a duo Barbara and Campos scored more than the entire NSC Minnesota Stars team. Minnesota was a good team defensively, but the Railhawks defense is backed by MLS alumnus Brad Knighton in goal and boasts a good unit led by Puerto Rican international John Krause. Carolina conceded six fewer times than Minnesota this season; their goal differential was a staggering 26 goals better than the Stars'. Minnesota should have no chance.
Of course, FC Tampa Bay said that too and the Stars ground out a 1-0 victory away. Minnesota is not a good team but they are a tough one; their record is mediocre but they never go down easy. Carolina's coming into the playoffs having lost four in a row but, with first place all-but-sewn up, those four games were meaningless to them. Possibly a bye week has refreshed their focus, or possibly it has dulled them (fans of the 2008 Seattle Sounders are nodding grimly right now).
Most remarkably, the NSC Minnesota Stars were actually unbeaten against the Carolina Railhawks this season. Minnesota won twice and drew twice against Carolina, including the final game of the season which got the Stars into the playoffs. If regular season form is any indication Minnesota may actually have the edge over Carolina.
It’s easy to predict a Railhawks whitewash based on their regular season dominance. But with the first leg taking place at Minnesota’s National Sports Center before the Stars’ modest but passionate crowd Carolina has a real fight on their hands. I predict a 1-1 draw in the first leg.
#4 Fort Lauderdale Strikers (9W 11D 8L) @ #2 Puerto Rico Islanders (15W 7D 6L), 7:30 PM Eastern, Bayamon, Puerto Rico
By humbling FC Edmonton 5-0 last week, the Fort Lauderdale Strikers drew a lot of attention. It was always safe to assume their series against the second-place Puerto Rico Islanders would be a close-fought one but that was a display of firepower nobody had expected, and with Puerto Rico’s defense being a bit less dominant than in years past there must have been a few long nights in head coach Colin Clarke’s office.
Puerto Rico and Fort Lauderdale split their season series with a win each and two draws. The Strikers weren't expected to make a lot of noise in their first season since moving from Miami but they grabbed some key veterans off the cast-off pile, with former Philadelphia Union defenders Toni Ståhl and Cristian Arrieta teaming up with lower-division journeymen like Adam West and Scott Gordon to create a defense that is far from the most solid in the NASL but is a constant threat to create offense. Agile goalkeeper Nic Platter, once the backup with the Carolina Railhawks, has recaptured the form that marked his best days in Minnesota. None of their offensive threats are stars but Brian Shriver finished with eight goals, Abe Thompson has been a quality finisher for years, and the seemingly-ageless Eduardo Coudet may have been the most pleasant surprise of the 2011 season. Fort Lauderdale isn't star-studded but, as a team, they can score with anybody who isn't Carolina.
Once upon a time the Puerto Rico Islanders made their name with stifling defense but those days are past. The best defender they ever produced, Cristian Arrieta, will line up against them today. There are still some good pieces in the Islanders defense like the exceptional young Richard Martinez and 23-year-old fullback Kevon Villaroel, but age and the loss of key players like Arrieta and goalkeeper Bill Gaudette has reduced the Islanders from a brilliant defensive team to a merely good one.
The Islanders are still the defending second-division champions and are not to be underestimated, but they no longer strike the fear of God into their adversaries. They rely increasingly on offensive stars Jonathan Faña and David Foley, both quality players who finished third and ninth in league scoring respectively. Given the occasional errors of Fort Lauderdale’s defense, Foley and Faña might be in for a turkey shoot at the toughest park in North American soccer, the Juan Ramón Loubriel Stadium in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. But for Faña and Foley to really break loose their midfield will need to dominate Fort Lauderdale’s, and given that the Striker’s midfield tore Edmonton’s vaunted corps to pieces last week while the Islanders are still relying on a fast-aging Noah Delgado as their best ball mover, that seems unlikely.
A 1-0 Puerto Rico victory seems likely, given Puerto Rico’s home field advantage and superior all-round team play. But, as fits one of the tightest second-division seasons of all time, no result in this game would be a surprise.
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