Season Preview: Tropics in tough PDL southeastern division, starting with FC Miami City showdown

Lakeland Tropics coach Eoghan Conlon can't be sure about how things will turn out Thursday night when his club plays its first ever Premier Development League game at FC Miami City.

But he does know what he expects.

“I'm really comfortable with where we're at. I expect us to be challenging for a top spot in the division,” Conlon said. “Even on the road, we're not going out to settle for a draw. We're going out to get the three points. That's our expectation, that we win.”

The Tropics are kicking off their first season in the United Soccer League's PDL with a 14-game regular season schedule including seven home games – six on Saturday nights – at Bryant Stadium.

The PDL is a feeder league to the higher levels of professional soccer in the United States. In fact, league officials point out that currently more than 370 PDL alumni are registered in the USL – which earned Division 2 status this past offseason and is planning to launch a new Division 3 league in 2019 -- while more than 220 players have graduated all the way to Major League Soccer.

The team is a sister-franchise to the Florida Tropics of the Major Arena Soccer League which recently concluded its first season at the Lakeland Center, with Dr. Panos Iakovidis majority owner of both teams.

Fans of the arena squad will certainly recognize some of their favorite players as Ricardo Diegues, tied for the Florida Tropics lead in goals with 17 despite missing a month of the MASL season with a hamstring injury, will spearhead Lakeland's offense on top of a a 4-4-3 formation that should emphasize Conlon's preference for an attacking style of play.

“Definitely, I think we have the right type of players to execute that kind of soccer,” Conlon said after having most of the team in training since the first of the month. “Obviously, the quicker we can gel, the quicker we can come together as a group, that's going to be the biggest challenge. But they've been bringing a professional mentality to every training session so far.”

Victor Parreiras, who was third on the arena team in points, will also be up top, while Victor Rojas, who netted eight goals indoors, will be one of Lakeland's main midfielders.

“We have a possession based philosophy. We want to give the players the authority to make the decisions, to be creative in the right areas of the field,” said Conlon, who is also the Technical Director of Lakeland FC, one of the state's largest youth organizations.

Also joining the outdoor side from the arena league team are speedy Maycon Franca, Alexi Cortez, Julian Pavlovski, veteran defender J.P. Reyes and goalkeeper Jonathan Valerio, who will be Lakeland's starter. He trained all winter with Florida, but did not appear in any MASL games.

Southeastern University's Pedro Ivo Dias, who led the Fire in goal scoring his sophomore and junior seasons and had 22 goals in three years at the Lakeland school, will be one of many talented area collegiate players on the roster, which include standouts from Florida Southern and the University of Tampa as well. Dias has already signed to play professionally for the Florida Tropics in that team's second year in the MASL which will kick off in November.

The Fire's leading scorer last fall, Jake Van Der Luit, is also on the Lakeland roster, as is the team's second-leading point getter last fall, Tauan Salgado. His brother, Caue

Thursday's opener will be webcast live on the FC Miami City YouTube channel. All seven of the Tropics home games at Bryant Stadium will also be webcast live.

Expecting to win, and actually doing so, might be  two different things for the Tropics, who will get several stiff tests early in the season to see where they stand in the PDL's very tough southeastern division.

The home opener May 20 is against The Villages SC, the defending division champs who are slotted No. 4 in the Southern Conference (Southeastern and Mid South divisions) power rankings, and who have been invited to play in the prestigous Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. The Tampa Bay Rowdies U23 team, like Lakeland a new entry in the PDL, will visit Bryant Stadium June 3 and are No. 3 in the same poll.

The Orlando based SIMA Aguilas are the No. 1 ranked team in the pre-season poll, and will play Lakeland twice near the end of the regular season, once at Bryant Stadium July 1 and then at the Montverde Academy on July 11. The South Florida Surf and Miami are honorable mention teams in the power rankings compiled by PDL staff members.

In all, 72 teams in eight divisions comprise the PDL. All nine of the teams in the southeastern division are Florida based, and also include Weston FC, IMG Academy and the Palm Beach Suns. The top two teams from the southeast and Mid South divisions will advance to the league playoffs which start July 21.