Teams meet in playoff Saturday
By Marc Weber
Charlie Naimo has never been a guy associated with luck.
Heading into the 2010 W-League season, he'd compiled a 65-3 regular-season record over five years coaching the New Jersey Wildcats, Jersey Sky Blue and California's Pali Blues. Pali was coming off back-to-back undefeated runs to the title. This season?
"It was a very unlucky year up to a point," said Naimo, 39, "and then it got extremely lucky. A week ago I didn't think we'd have a playoff chance, but I think we deserved to get in."
Their reward is a playoff date against the conference-winning Whitecaps at Swangard Stadium this Saturday at 4 p.m. Last weekend, the Blues were rooting for the Caps to at least tie Seattle, which they came from behind to do in Victoria.
And Pali was in that position only because their lowly neighbours, Santa Clarita, managed to tie the Colorado Rush on July 15. Just for fun, that game included a late penalty-kick save.
Finally in control of their destiny, Pali thumped the Rush 4-0 last weekend to win a three-way tiebreaker with the Rush and Seattle Sounders.
"We have a second chance at life now," said Naimo, who pulls double duty as technical adviser and assistant coach with Chicago Red Stars of Women's Professional Soccer. "This team feels we have a little fate on our side, which is good.
"I don't think we're a 3-4-3 team. I think the two best teams are going to play this weekend and I'm really hoping the champion comes from the Western Conference."
It has four of the last six years, with Vancouver winning in 2004 and '06. The winner of Saturday's game advances to the W-League final four.
The Whitecaps (6-0-4) snapped Pali's 33-game unbeaten streak with a 2-1 road win on June 19. A week later, Vancouver beat the Blues 3-2 in Langley.
Naimo pointed to the addition of Italian international Sara Gama since those games, and the inclusion of two Danish national team members who had just stepped off a transatlantic flight last time they met.
"They see themselves still being the team to beat in the west," said Caps coach Hubert Busby Jr., an assistant with now-defunct WPS side L.A. Sol last season when Naimo was general manager.
"We stopped that win streak, but that's one season and this is another. We're not going to be satisfied until we're undefeated come August 1."
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