Condor's Back

Last year, I became a fan of the local soccer team - Club Deportivo Condor. They're not quite the New York Yankees of Ecuadorian soccer. I think the Detroit Lions is a much better comparison.

In the month and a half that I followed the team, I didn't see them score a single goal. And according to everyone I talked to, that was the team's best season in recent memory.

Well, they're back.

The new season of Condor soccer officially begins next Saturday. And because I'll be accompanying the AREvista sports writers to most of the games this year, I figured I will post a few blogs about the team's progress, my observations of the crowd, critique of how they treat the media, etc.

Should be a good time.

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Last year's team actually did pretty well. I just started following them at the wrong time.

At the beginning of the season, the 12 professional teams from the province are divided into the three groups of four. Within these groups of four, each team plays a home-and-home series against the other. The top two teams from each group advance to the hexagonal.

Last year, Condor advanced out of the group-of-four stage into the hexagonal for the first time since the local soccer media can remember. Then they played against five of the top teams in the province.

It was at this point that I started following the team last year. Because they other teams in the province were very good (and Condor wasn't quite at that level), they weren't very competitive in that league. They comfortably finished last.

The top two teams from the hexagonal would then advance into a nationwide tournament against other teams at that level. And the top two teams from that nationwide tournament qualify for the Series B professional league.

I wrote the previous paragraph so that you get a sense of how the system works. It is quite unrealistic to think Condor has any chance to reach that level in the foreseeable (or unforeseeable) future.

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If you want to be optimistic about Condor's chances to advance the hexagonal again, it has the same four-team group as last year.

So I guess they have that going for them.

On the other hand, they showed up at their first practice with eight players on the roster. One would typically like to be able to field a full squad of 11. And in a perfect world, you would like to be able to have two lines to play scrimmage-like games in practice. Twenty five is the number the coach was looking for.

Apparently, he finalized his roster earlier this week. But at their first exhibition of the year, they didn't wear jerseys and some guy showed up, begging the coach to let him on the team (even though he hadn't shown up at any of the earlier practices or tryouts).

Condor also has a new coach this year. His predecessor left for more money, so his former assistant took over. As someone who knows very little about soccer, I have no idea how this will effect this will have, except that the fans will be complaining about a different coach this year than last.

The roster should have a lot of familiar names on it - if you knew the names last year, that is. It appears that they return a lot of player's from last year's hexagonal-qualifying team, but it will be difficult to gauge the team's progress until one sees how the other local teams size up.

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I have really no idea what to expect out of this year's soccer season - except good times. It would be great for the everyone if the local team can play well. I think it would be great for the community's self-esteem.