The Englishman, the Rich Port and the homeless Barracuda

Photo credit: Puerto Rico FC

In 2017, Puerto Rico FC have yet to win a game. They’re dead last in the NASL table, and recently ran a five-game losing streak before drawing at Miami FC on Saturday. This abysmal start led to the dismissal of their head coach, Adrian Whitbread, who had been at the helm since the team first took the field last year.

For now, they’re under the interim leadership of assistant coach Marco Velez, who opened his tenure by blowing a 1-0 halftime lead to North Carolina FC. As for Whitbread, he’s now out of a job for the third time in five years.

So, how did we get here? Let’s start by looking at the man himself, Adrian Whitbread.

He made a reputation as a solid, if unspectacular, defender with lengthy spells at Leyton Orient and Portsmouth in the 1990s. He retired to take up coaching following a knee injury in April of 2003. He worked as an assistant coach at Barnet, Brentford, MK Dons and Leicester City in England, before taking up assistant coaching jobs for both the Puerto Rico Islanders and the Puerto Rico national team in 2008.

The Puerto Rico Islanders by then had been in the USL system since 2004, with a history of finishing mid-table and drawing an average of about 5,000 at the gate, yet had declined early in the 2007 season. This led to the sacking of then-coach Toribio Rojas and the hiring of both Whitbread and new head coach Colin Clarke.

2008 finally brought success to Puerto Rico, as Clarke and Whitbread took the Islanders to the regular season title only to lose in the championship final to Vancouver. But still, this was their best league finish, a massive improvement from the previous year, and a great cause for hope among the Islanders faithful.

They followed up their success in the league with a run in the CONCACAF Champions League. They survived longer than any teams from the USA and Canada, and only went out in the semifinals on penalties to Cruz Azul. Not bad at all, and the best result ever for a Puerto Rican team in CONCACAF play.

The following year saw another solid season for the Islanders. They ended the year in third in the USL First Division, made it to the playoff semifinals and finished second in the CFU Championship. But off the field, attendance dropped sharply, down 1,130 to only 3,300. And in league news, the world of North American pro soccer entered a dark era known only as #SoccerWarz.

To make a very long and dramatic story short enough to act as a segue in this article, a number of clubs in the USL announced a breakaway league reviving the NASL branding, and aimed to become the USA’s official second tier. U.S. Soccer took a different opinion, and instead forced the rebel NASL clubs and USL loyalists to participate in a one-off, temporary Division 2 league called the USSF Division 2 Professional League. This allowed both leagues to resolve their member clubs in order to meet USSF’s sanctioning requirements. (Note: If you’d like to learn more about this chaotic era in U.S. soccer history, I highly recommend the book #SoccerWarz by Kartik Krishnaiyer.)

In the 2010 D2 Pro League season, the Islanders finished fifth out of six in their conference. In most professional sports leagues, finishing second from the bottom in a conference means you usually don’t make the playoffs, but in the magical world of the 2010 temporary D2 league, Puerto Rico qualified for the playoffs by virtue of finishing eighth in the combined standings. It also meant that they were seeded against the regular season champions, the Rochester Rhinos.

Sure, the Rhinos could win in chilly Rochester, but could they win on a rainy Thursday night in Bayamon? As it turns out, no, they couldn’t. Puerto Rico took the first game easily, winning 2-0. Two days later, the Rhinos managed a win 2-1, but that one Islanders goal sent them packing. Onward to the Whitecaps, and again, 2-0 win.

The Islanders then got a chance at redemption after losing the championship playoff two years prior. Another 2-0 win, this time over the Carolina RailHawks, gave the Islanders the upper hand heading into the second leg. A 1-1 draw on the road was all it took, and for the first time ever the Puerto Rico Islanders had a championship trophy.

#RecordandoAlosIslanders | 2010: Puerto Rico Islanders se coronaban campeones de la NASL derrotando a Railhawks pic.twitter.com/9Y0aRvhqFM

— Minuto 90 (@Minuto90Radio) March 5, 2015

To celebrate, the Islanders announced their defection to the NASL for the inaugural campaign of the rebel league. In the stands though, things looked less than victorious. Attendance continued to fall, dropping another thousand to 2,358.

And yet, the team’s form continued, charging to second place in the standings in the new NASL. They also managed another win in the CFU championship. The loss of AT&T as a sponsor was mitigated by signing with Toyota. And in another minor victory, the attendance bleed began to clot, holding steady enough at 2,161.

But this wasn’t enough to keep Colin Clarke around. He departed for Carolina in December 2011.

Enter the Adrian Whitbread era. His time had come — his first head coaching job. And it began not with a whimper, but with a bang.

The Puerto Rico Islanders opened the 2012 season with three wins and a draw, outscoring their opponents 8-1. Twelve games in, they had only lost three times. But alas, a midseason slump and a streak of six games without a win near the end dropped them to third. Still, though, not too shabby at all. But again they went out in the playoff semifinals, this time to Minnesota. And again the crowds dwindled, now down to 1,864.

That, along with financial issues — not just for the club but for the island as a whole — led to the team announcing that they would sit out the 2013 NASL spring season. This later extended to the rest of the year, and in August the team announced that they were done.

Enter Antigua Barracuda FC, another Caribbean experiment. The team was created to help the Antigua and Barbuda national team prepare for 2014 World Cup qualifying, but by 2013 the national side had been eliminated, the club had been evicted from their stadium and their future looked bleak. By June 2013, the Islanders were essentially dead, and Antigua needed help. In their first 11 games as a traveling team they lost every single one, and got outscored an absurd 41 to 5. Their best results were their 2-0 and 3-1 losses, and even gave up the biggest win in USL history, 8-0 to the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Fernando Abraham was sacked. Whitbread was brought in to hopefully turn the tide, but nothing could be done. The Barracudas ended the season with a record of no wins, no draws, and 26 losses. Over the entire season, they only managed to score 11 goals and allowed a jaw-dropping 91. Only once all season did they score two goals in a single game. By the end of the season, the USL had decided enough was enough, and the Antigua experiment was terminated.

This means that, within the span of six months, Whitbread lost two head coaching positions due to the insolvency of his clubs.

He was now a common sight among Caribbean participants in American leagues, and had a bit of a reputation for taking on the direst of jobs. So when Carmelo Anthony announced his new club, Puerto Rico FC, Whitbread was an easy candidate for the job.

The club would take the place of the defunct Islanders and play in the same stadium in Bayamon, only modernized and renovated to work as a proper soccer stadium. It also had much more stable finances and considerably deeper pockets. The team even elected to sit out the short 2016 Spring campaign in order to spend more time preparing for their first league match.

Photo credit: Puerto Rico FC

And yet, things didn’t go quite as planned. PRFC didn’t get a win until their fifth match, then took another 10 games to get their second. Three straight wins were offset by a draw and two losses, and even a win in the final match of the season wasn’t enough to finish above ninth.

A tepid offense, a leaky defense and a tendency to concede late in games did not a successful season make. But we did get two promising highlights from the premier of Puerto Rico FC: a solid win in the new Copa Luis Villarejo and an average attendance north of 3,500. Things were looking up, and a solid foundation was in place for 2017.

So, what the hell happened?

On paper, everything looked pretty good heading into 2017. Key players were retained, new players with MLS and NASL experience were brought in, and the preseason went very, very well.

They started the regular season with a 0-0 draw at home to the Cosmos. Not too bad. They followed that up with a 3-3 draw in Indianapolis. This could have been a win and probably should have been, but a missed penalty in first half stoppage time by Hector Ramos and a late goal conceded to Justin Braun sunk them.

Indy then came to Bayamon and eked out another draw, this time 1-1. Puerto Rico led for most of the first half, but a stoppage time equalizer and the continued lack of finishing meant a third winless game. And then the front fell off:

• In Edmonton, a 2-1 loss, with two conceded in 10 minutes
• A 1-0 loss at home against North Carolina
• Led the bulk of the game against Miami after scoring in the 24th minute, but conceded one in the 82nd and another in stoppage time to fall 2-1

In review, the moment that likely sealed Whitbread’s fate was the red card to Yuma in the 35th minute in Brooklyn. That game began pretty much perfectly for Puerto Rico, scoring twice in the first 16 minutes.

Everything was starting to go their way, and the team was looking pretty comfortable in their 3-5-2 formation. But after a tackle in the 35th minute, Yuma appeared to slap Juan Guerra as he got up — straight red card. Down a man, Puerto Rico had nothing for the Cosmos.

They gave up two in quick succession to end the first half, and two more within the first 15 minutes of the second. A 64th-minute penalty goal helped, but not much. Puerto Rico walked away with a fourth straight loss.

Five days later, Whitbread and technical director Neil Sillett were out.

The next day, we got the first glimpse of the post-Whitbread era, and Puerto Rico’s losing form continued. Again they managed to lead for the majority of the game after a 27th-minute goal. And also again, they conceded late. Two goals given up to North Carolina in the final 20 minutes snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

In his second game in charge, Velez at least managed a point on the road in Miami. He also seems to prefer running a 4-2-3-1 formation, with Ramon Soria anchoring the defense and Austin Pack in goal.

Photo credit: Puerto Rico FC

He’s also kept Dawson at right back and Gentile on the right wing. But other than those four players and the general formation, we’re seeing a lot of experimentation with the starting XI.

Here are a few questions to ponder ahead of PRFC’s home game next week against fellow cellar dwellers FC Edmonton:

How long will we see Marco Velez in charge? Do they keep him on permanently, or will we see a new face soon? Do they stick with the 4-2-3-1? Or do they switch back to the 3-5-2 that started to look less bad under Whitbread?

Who knows. We’ll all start to find out when Puerto Rico hosts the 11th-place Eddies on June 3. Catch the match live on beIN Sports.

You can follow John on Twitter @JohnMLTX.