This week in women's football, we look at the Puerto Rico's Women's National Team as they prepared for Women's World Cup Qualifying this summer with a trio of matches against American college's.
Puerto Rico goes 1-0-2 in their First Matches under their New Coach
In mid-March, we discussed the announcement that veteran club and national team coach Shek Borkowski, a Polish-American who played collegiately at the University of Akron, had been named head coach and technical director for the Puerto Rican National Women's Teams. With Caribbean World Cup qualifying this summer, Borkowski quickly gathered his new team together and played against U.S. college sides that he had strong relationships with—Notre Dame and Ball State in Indiana and St. Bonaventure in New York. Borkowski is still involved in an executive and technical role with FC Indiana, the club side that he built in Northern Indiana into a WPSL and W-League force since 2003. Ball State and St. Bonaventure are both coached by former FCI assistants, who have also helped him during his 5 years as national team coach of Haiti, which he left in March to join Puerto Rico. After a 12-0 loss to national power University of Notre Dame in South Bend on April 20—shortly after the team gathered in Indiana—they went to nearby Muncie and defeated the Mid-American Conference's Ball State University 5-1 on April 22. Puerto Rico's goal tally was led by two goals from former Ball State defender Lorina White, a native of Queens, New York. Micaela Castain (who played at Washington State University and is now an assistant coach at the University of Montana) and Maria Luisa Colon (a 15 year old midfielder from San Juan, Puerto Rico) also scored for the islanders. Ball State Head Coach Craig Roberts said after the game: "I think any time you play a national team, you're always the underdog. From what I've seen of the Puerto Rico team, they have a lot of promise for the future. They have a talented group of individuals." Roberts will be assisting Borkowski with Puerto Rico when available around his college coaching responsibilities. Castain, herself now a college coach, said before the trip that Borkowski's appointment and his program building plan: "will allow Puerto Rico to compete at a higher level," something that was a dream to the team in the past. It also provides an opportunity for Castain to continue to play, having been denied a chance to play in NWSL with Chicago Red Stars as a pre-season invite a few years ago—which is always a difficult road to make a NWSL team.) If Borkowski's development plan takes hold and results improve on the field, NWSL teams will be wise to scout his games for upcoming talent, particularly younger players from the island nation.
On April 24, Puerto Rico went to upstate New York to play St. Bonaventure University—a school in the Atlantic 10 conference along with major universities such as Dayton, George Mason, George Washington, Massachusetts, Richmond, St. Louis and Virginia Commonwealth. The Bonnies defeated Puerto Rico 2-1 as goals from Danielle Vis and Sydney Cerza in the first half held up, while Colon scored again for the visitors. Tribal Football.com talked to St. Bonaventure head coach Steve Brdarski a few days after the match. Brdarski was ecstatic about the win for his team, which was a rare chance to play against an international side. In addition, Brdarski coached with newly named Puerto Rican head coach Shek Borkowski at FC Indiana for years. Recently he has assisted Borkowski in his 5 years with Haiti, again when available around his college duties.
Brdarski is entering his fifth season at St. Bonaventure and though they have not yet made the NCAA playoffs, their priority first is consistently making and challenging for their league playoffs. He explained that St. Bonaventure has only 5.9 scholarships to award a year for 19-20 team members, compared to the other schools which fund between 10 and 14 full scholarships. He had positioned the Puerto Rico match as "maybe their only chance ever to play an international side." During his spring off-season (U.S. colleges regular season and playoffs are in the fall), the match allowed him to demonstrate the difference between the more tactical game played at the international level and the college game, which typically "is played at a 100 miles an hour. For internationals, the players think at a 100 miles an hour." College teams commonly play a high pressure game but he had to prepare them to play "a more patient style." On what he described as an "electric night", with over 600 fans and a post-match dinner with the teams that featured singing and dancing, at halftime he had to prepare his squad to withstand Shek's expected increased offense for the final 45 minutes. Puerto Rico's two forwards in the first half became three about 10 minutes into the second half, as Borkowski pulled a midfielder. Borkowski then added a fourth forward (replacing a defender) for the final 15 minutes. Brdarski had to realign his defence, having his four defenders play woman-to-woman and pulling a midfielder back to support them, "to try to shield the back line."
Brdarski wants to play Puerto Rico away next spring (college teams can go abroad every 5 years in the off-season and just after he joined St. Bonaventure ahead of the 2013 fall season, the team went to Spain and France, where they held Barcelona and Espanyol to 0-0 draws and fell to St. Etienne 2-3.) However, Puerto Rico is technically not a foreign port of call to the U.S. Government, since the island is an American territory and the players carry U.S. Passports—which is a benefit for Borkowski as the U.S. Government was heavily restricting visas for his Haitian women players after so many had illegally stayed in the country. For Brdarski however, it is a problem to solve—perhaps he can play Puerto Rico in another country in a tournament. Cuba is one possibility—with a slowly developing women's program that Borkowski has played while in Haiti—as the nation is opening up to American business and travel and would be a culturally outstanding experience. The trips help Brdarski infuse the spirit and the passion for the game into his players, in a country which has still not thoroughly embraced throughout the sport.
Brdarski sees Puerto Rico as a wondrous opportunity for Borkowski and his coaching staff. Borkowski has been scouting games all over the island—discounting what some thought would be wholesale importing of players that have no connection to the island—which the men's side has done in the past. Borkowski will look for ex-pats who can help but his base with be Puerto Ricans, though with the island's continuing economic problems, ten percent of the island have emigrated during the past ten years—the vast majority to the United States. With this recent trip to the Midwest and East, Borkowski has taken some of his women players off the island for the first time and shown them the possibilities of playing collegiately in the states. Brdarski calls Shek Borkowksi "an ambassador for the game" and with some of the American-based players of Puerto Rican descent that he has called in—some of whom have been ignored by past coaches even though they played for PR at the youth level—"he has connected families back to their heritage by connecting these players to Puerto Rico." Puerto Rico's women's national team develop seems to be in a rapid state of development under Shek Borkowski, which should be an interesting story to watch.
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women's football. Get your copy today.
Follow Tim on Twitter: @TimGrainey