USL PRO: Kickers Win Season Opener, Puerto Rican Clubs Draw
Opening day of the USL PRO 2011 season for four clubs saw the Richmond Kickers earn a 2-0 win at home against Orlando City SC, while Sevilla FC Puerto Rico and River Plate Puerto Rico opened up the season by splitting points in a 2-2 draw at Roberto Clemente Stadium.
Richmond Kickers 2-0 Orlando City
The Kickers started off 2011 on the right foot. After playing in the USL-2 playoff final in 2010, Richmond Coach Leigh Cowlishaw looks for another successful year and the Kickers came through. Taking advantage of a penalty kick awarded them after an Erik Ustruck foul on Ryan Heins. Stanley Nyazamba beat Orlando City goalkeeper Miguel Gallardo in the 39th minute to give the Kickers a 1-0 lead that they took into intermission. Gallardo had earlier denied quality chances by Richmond’s Gerson dos Santos and Matt Delicâte, while Orlando City’s Jamie Watson had a nice chance in the 37th minute but shot wide.
The Kickers doubled their pleasure on a rainy afternoon at Richmond’s City Stadium in the second half. Gallardo denied Sascha Görres again in the 72nd minute, and Orlando looked to equalize but their goal was disallowed due to a foul. Delicâte finally got the better of Gallardo in the 83rd minute, sending the crowd of 1650 home happy as he sent home a Sascha Görres cross for an insurance goal. Kickers’ goalkeeper Ronnie Pascale earned the clean sheet.
Coach Adrian Heath’s Orlando City SC opens their home schedule next Saturday against FC New York, while Richmond heads to Pittsburgh to test their away form against the Riverhounds also next Saturday.
Richmond Lineup: Pascale, Kalungi, William, Callahan, Dos Santos, Elcock, Görres, Heins, Nyazamba, Vercollone, Delicâte Subs Used: Bulow 67′ (for Nyazamba)
Orlando SC Lineup: Gallardo, Jerome, Stewart, Traynor, Valentino, Alvarez, Neal, Ustruck, Griffin, Jorsling, Watson Subs Used: Olum 61′ (for Ustruck), Fuller 81′ (for Watson)
Sevilla FC Puerto Rico 2-2 River Plate Puerto Rico
River Plate Puerto Rico twice came back from deficits to earn a draw with their International Division rivals, Sevilla FC Puerto Rico. Sevilla broke the ice in the 33rd minute on a goal by Ryan Massoud off a corner kick from Erik Hort, a 24-year-old New Yorker who’s played professionally in both the Czech Republic and Israel. River Plate equalized a few minutes before halftime, with River captain Peter Villegas netting the team’s first goal of the season.
Sevilla went ahead in the 2nd half as another Hort corner kick resulted in a score, this time by Nicholas Cardenas in the 71st minute. But River Plate found their way back to split the points with ten minutes remaining, as Cuban striker Yaikel Perez headed from a Julio Maya cross. Perez played for Sevilla FC Puerto Rico in 2008 and 2009, and spent last season with Crystal Palace Baltimore in the USSF D2.
Sevilla FC will try to build on the result next Sunday in a match against Puerto Rico United, while River Plate Puerto Rico have a week off before hosting the same Puerto Rico United club on Sunday, April 17th.
Sevilla FC Lineup: Torlacoff, Morales, Cardenas, Massoud, E. Velez-Lago, Acevedo-Riazza, Guirand, Hort, Jordan, Nieves Rivera. Gustave Subs Used: J. Velez-Lago 76′ (for Nieves-Rivera)
River Plate Lineup: Hill, Bermudez, Marioni, Morello, Arce, Francois, Montoya Villalta, Paruolo, Villegas, Magaloudis, Perez Subs Used: Maya-Cruz 78′ (for Francois)
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“The Kickers started off 2011 on the right foot.”
I see what you did there.
So no one is concerned about the 315 attendance figure from River Plate?
Thats pretty much a good attendance for non-Islanders PR teams
1) Remember when people said this site was a mouthpiece for the NASL?
2) Strikers Return, where did you see the attendance number? I can’t seem to find it, but that is a putrid amount of people.
3) Was it me or did that field for the River Plate vs. Sevilla not meet basic standards. What was that stuff? 1980 astro-turf?
1,650 for the Kickers home opener? I think that the main difference between the NASL and USLPro will be attendance. The Kickers are one of the “big” teams and to get that low of a number for the opening game is pretty bad. I think that the NASL will average about 6K per game while USLPro average something around half that.
Paul,
So it won’t be the quality of the play, only the attendance? Interesting take. I think your 6 K is extremely high. Ya, we all hope for that. I hope for that in both leagues but there is a reality here of past history and those numbers are very inflated. I think numbers of half that for USL PRO are also inflated. Again, I wish that for everyone. But I think it’s going to take time to get to those sorts of numbers. When I say time I’m talking years, not games.
@superrookie – Here is the link to the USL page with the match summary, attendance is right at the top.
http://uslpro.uslsoccer.com/stats/2011/2175581.html
It’s only one game, so it’s very hard to quantify, but in the coming weeks I think we’ll get a clearer picture on the attendance of USL Pro. I am particularly interested in the following:
USL vs. NASL attendance averages – Logic suggsts D2 SHOULD draw better than D3, but I’m sure this won’t be the case across the board. Atlanta is going to struggle, I don’t think there’s much doubt of that. And teams like Charleston and (I thought) Richmond should do better than the Silverbacks and maybe a couple others. But overall league attendance figures should certainly by skewed toward NASL.
USL International Division – I really hope that River Plate home opener isn’t even close to be indicative of what we’re going to see all season long from the Caribbean teams. If it is, we’ll have to start wondering if all 15 teams that started the USL D3 season will wind up finishing it.
How will Rochester and Orlando fare compared to last year’s numbers – Again, logic would seem to foretell a decrease simply from dropping from D2 to D3. In Orlando’s case you’ve also got a new market. I think even the staunchest supporters of these teams would clam up if asked for reasonable scenarios in which their teams somehow improved on last year’s numbers. I think USL is counting on these two franchises to really “close the gap” perception wise between themselves and the NASL, both in the stands and on the field. On the field will be debatable as their will be no USOC matches between the leagues this year, but in the stands I’m guessing the Rhinos and Orlando are going to come in below expectations. How are home matches against the likes of Antigua and Dayton going to draw? Just can’t help thinking Clark would see much bigger crowds playing at home against recognizable teams like the Rowdies, Strikers, and Impact.
I wasn’t there, but I heard there was some pretty bad weather up in Richmond. I know they have and will draw more than that.
Also VCU was in the Final Four Saturday. The teams even moved the match to 4pm to de-conflict some but the tip-off of the VCU/Butler game was at 6pm.
@Strikers Return
It will be interesting to see how some of the new USL teams fair attendence wise.
Wilmington I expect will have a good attendence this year (3000 range) they were right there for a couple years before their hiatus and the community there has really rallied around the team.
Dayton was getting around 1500+ for matches last year in PDL. I imagine they will improve on that too.
Charleston’s attendence actually went up last year after the drop from D2 to D3, but we had the benefit of all home games being on a Saturday night. We have a couple matches during the week this season so I imagine that will effect attendence here.
First game attendance during March Madness where VCU is playing is no indicator of the season attendance.
6,000 attendance? The sweet sweet smell from the wacky weed is reaking havoc on the left portion of the brain that does math calculations.
The second division standards are set up so that the infrastructure can handle larger crowds, and as such it is expected that NASL games have higher attendance, in fact, I would bet that for future sanctioning, it will be one of the items on the checklist (although a very small one) that will be reviewed.
Further, why compare “AAA” soccer against that of the “AA” league? It is an apples and oranges comparison.
I would argue to focus on the competition inside the leagues and the fun of the games, not the inevitable argument on which league is “better”.
@Bart – As someone who has long been a catalyst in the which league is better argument on this site, it’s amusing to hear you downplay such talk at this point. LOL I agree that Richmond will be fine as they have pulled in a very consistent 2,000+ for a number of years now. No reason to think that will change this year, unless t he extra travel expenses put any kind of dent in their player salary budget. The one thing that is sure to scare off fans faster than anything else is a drop in the level of play on the field. Hopefully Richmond and Charleston, the cornerstones of USL Pro don’t see this happen to them.
Also, while I agree that 6,000 is too high an average for the entire NASL, as you can pretty much guarantee that more than half the teams won’t come near that number, I strongly believe that you will see an overall improvement in attendance year over year for the teams that are playing D2 again this year. The Strikers are going to absolutely annihilate Miami FC’s attendance last year. I think Tampa being in a much more fan friendly stadium that the team will control rather than Yankees thugs will help them as well. If the Islanders, Railhawks, and Stars can all see even small gains over last year, overall I think attendance will be a positive in the league’s inaugural season.
USL on the other hand, I’m highly skeptical of what we’ll see. I suspect the 315 number that came out of River Plate is only the start of the poor numbers we’ll see for that entire division. FCNY? Who the heck knows what happens there. Does anyone really think Clark is going to see bigger crowds this year in Rochester after self-relegating? And I’ve been saying all along that there is no way Orlando comes even close to what Austin averaged last year. I think they’ll be lucky to average half Austin’s number last year by the time the season is over.
@mikey – The USL schedule is so screwy this year thanks to that ill-advised international division, that I honestly think it could have some affect on attendance as well. How many people are going to show up for two games in a three day period? I know a lot of that stuff is just for the Caribbean and California trips, but every team has to make at least one, if not both of those trips right?
I have no worries about your Battery or Richmond. We’ll have to see how the hiatus affects Wilmington. The other holdovers from D3 will probably be ok for the most part too. But as I said to Bart, I think all USL fans have to be concerned about the international division, and probably FCNY also. Most of these teams haven’t played yet, so it’s all still conjecture at this point. I hope for the sake of fans like you that the introduction of a non-regional schedule and set up in what was clearly billed as a regional league does not hurt the teams that don’t deserve it like Charleston.
1) Richmond Kickers doing what the Kickers do. Just on opening day. Good result.
2) @ Strikers Return: I am very concerned by the River-Sevilla attendance VERY CONCERNED (is that enough “concerned for you?) If they have any sense, they should be worrying in Tamper, too. VERY WORRIED. It was even less than what I had expected. Both Juncos (Sevilla) and Fajardo (River) are investing a lot of public money in support of the clubs’ stadiums It is nohing less than alarming to me that match took place in the Metro area and only 315.
I will be very pleasantly surprised (somewhere just south of “amazed”) if USLPRO finishes the season with 15 teams. The USL PRO International Division is most vulnerable link. I suspect that the league is going to have a lot of valid questions to answer about why they decided to gamble by including the Caribbean clubs and LA this year. A lot of questions.
3) @Superrookie: This site is STILL “(a very shameless) mouthpiece for the NASL”! All of Gerry’s hardwork covering USLPRO is just another part of the anti-USL conspiracy. The USL loving-NASL haters who can see the obvious “anti-USL agenda” here need to send Gerry Wittman Paypal donation. The USL coverage found is second to only to the USL (whose JOB is to cover and promote USL).
The stadium is far from ideal for soccer. But it’s got Roberto Clemente Walker’s name on it (may the grand gentleman, RIP) and at least my “adopted hometown”, Carolina (in da house) was able to provide two teams that aren’t from Carolina a place to play. The site was approved by USL and it is functional. At this point, that stadium it is a godsend because without it, the USL would be looking even more suspect. PR United’s home ground was deemed inadequate (but that is a long story for another day) and they will be playing at Roberto Clemente Walker this season also…
4) Paul: Bro?!?! This is a bit scarey–ok–really scarey but I gotta agree with BART!?!? Like Musical Youth (they were such cute and talented kids) used to sing (after they sterilzed the lyrics) “Please pass the dutchie pon de left hand side!” Ok. In all seriousness, I’m quite sure that your attendance predictions were not the result of some wacky tobacky but somebody must have slipped some hallucinogenics in the NASL Kool-Aid.
Even with Montreal curving the attendance up, NASL ain’t gonna draw 6k this year. Even with Rochester and Charleston to help push the average up, I’m not gonna be betting Gerry Wittmans’ monthly mortgage payment that USL is gonna average 3k. They both would be THRILLED to hit those averages that you are predicting. THRILLED. Just how is the NASL going to hit that 6k? I don’t think Montreal’s 10k is going to be enough to pull everyone else up.
Maybe I’ll be proven wrong. I would LOVE to be wrong.
Great result for Sevilla considering that they had only a few days training together before the match!
Very disappointing result for River, given the resources that they have and that they managed to dominate play. A lot is expected of them. They have set the bar very high for themselves and are very ambitious. They have been from the start.
You guys heard it here on IMS, first:
YAIKEL PEREZ–that guy’s is going to be one of the most productive and dangerous players in USLPRO. If he stays healthy, he’s going to be a candidate for the scoring title. I expect him towards the top. Match in, match out, he was arguably the best forward Baltimore had last season.
The guy is going to be a stud at the third division level.
Props to Richmond for being Richmond! Nice start for their 2011 campaign.