12/18/24
February 01, 2008
Puerto Rico: Emerging Caribbean Soccer Power?: With over two years of inactivity at the international level, Puerto Rico had sunk to a lowly ranking of 196 of 207 prior to this last two week’s return to action with successful warm-up friendlies against Bermuda and Trinidad & Tobago. The seeds of a renaissance were planted in 2004 with the birth of the Puerto Rico Islanders in the USL First Division . Now, as Puerto Rico heads toward World Cup qualifying, the island’s top club team and National Team are on the cusp of becoming regional powers.
Bugger, there goes my plan for a series of posts on the emerging football power that is Bhutan.
posted by owlhouse at 04:46 PM on February 01, 2008
Sorry to upset you terrapin, it was not my intention. You may not be a world soccer fan, and I can understand that. Soccer is not as well supported in the US, as say the NFL or NBA. But there is an increasingly bigger following of soccer in the US that would appreciate this article, which meets, to my knowledge, the guidelines of the website: A good FPP requires a sports related link that has not been seen by most people, is interesting in content, and will foster discussion among the community. For one, the article shows the strong development of the game for Puerto Rico; which you might not care of; but many others do, including players and teams in the USL. Second it shows how well Colin Clarke is doing in live after the MLS. He got fired in the MLS and now is commanding a ship that has potential of reaching a FIFA World Cup (if you don't care about soccer you might not care about the World Cup either). Thirdly, it talks about how the Puerto Rican national team is giving additional chances to US players that might never have a chance to play for the US in the World Cup, to still play in a World Cup with the Puerto Rican team. That's very important to many US players and their followers. So, in summary, my post is not a GYOFB moment, but actually an IDCASDRSL (If you Don't Care About Soccer, Don't Read and Skip to the next Link). Just because the article doesn't fit your interests, doesn't make it a bad post. Thanks for posting your comment, helping to foster discussion among the community.
posted by BoriQa at 07:06 AM on February 03, 2008
BoriQa, would you like me to get you a bigger shovel? That seems to be a pretty deep hole you're digging for yourself there.
posted by tommybiden at 08:38 AM on February 03, 2008
BoriQa, you need to know your audience a lot better before quoting the rules to terrapin, who has a three digit member number (as do I, an active member for just about five years now): - "terrapin has posted 36 links and 735 comments to SportsFilter and 21 threads and 229 comments to the Locker Room" in nearly six years. - "billsaysthis has posted 110 links and 3313 comments to SportsFilter and 6 threads and 284 comments to the Locker Room." Second, if you spent any time at all on SpoFi other than your own posts you'd know that the membership here is: a) hardly exclusively American b) a hotbed of soccer fans--we have our own Premier League, Champions League and MLS fantasy leagues and a few years ago had TWO EPL fantasy leagues plus a World Cup competition too. Third, look back at the previous game report type postings you've made on Puerto Rican soccer and other non-mainstream sports. How much discussion have they fostered? 20 comments for four posts, which is being generous since a number of the comments had little to do with the post, is not really what I would consider a strong track record.
posted by billsaysthis at 12:41 PM on February 03, 2008
But there is an increasingly bigger following of soccer in the US that would appreciate this article... Sorry dude-not so much. It would be the same if you were writing about T&T, Costa Rica, Guatemala, etc. There's just not much intrigue there, although there is a place for it on the web, just as there is for all topics. I truly admire your passion for the PR team, but you're not really hitting your audience with these posts. A blog is a good suggestion.
posted by Texan_lost_in_NY at 01:39 PM on February 03, 2008
I am not a moderator, so I don't get to make such decisions, but BoriQa, these updates on a subject that you obviously hold dear are starting to look like a GYOFB (Get Your Own Freakin Blog) moments. As I said earlier, perhaps you want to write a weekly Puerto Rican soccer column for the site? I think that would be a good thing. We get that you love Puerto Rican soccer. And that's cool, but with updates on the same topic week by week it is straying a bit from the Sportsfilter model of finding cool things on the web about sport and sharing it with the community to "Here's my pet project which I am going to link to regularly." If you haven't already seen them, take a peek at the Guidelines and specifically the section on what makes a good post.