On March 11, 2017, the Puerto Rican Football Federation (FPF) announced the appointment of Shek Borkowski as the technical director for all the women's national teams.
Labrador Rosa, the FPF President said: “For the first time in history we are designating a national coach specifically and permanently for our women's teams, which highlights the importance we are giving to women's football, understanding that we have a great chance of achieving a significant and rapid progress at an international level. We understand that with the arrival of Borkowski we give a big boost to the growth of that process of female advancement."
Borkowski, who was the women's national team coach for Haiti for the past five years, has to hit the ground running in order to organize and prepare a team as 2019 Women's World Cup qualifying in the Caribbean region will begin this May, with the 3 Caribbean teams decided this August for the CONCACAF finals—a year sooner than with the 2015 WWC sub-regional qualifiers.
The final 8 CONCACAF qualifiers are anticipated to face off in late 2018. In addition, Borkowski will also have CFU (Caribbean Football Union) U-20 qualifiers in July and U-17 qualifiers in August. Borkowski will take a leave from FC Indiana—the club he helped to found over a decade ago—and spend the summer in Puerto Rico.
Borkowski, 54 years old told Tribalfootball.com a day before leaving for Puerto Rico this week that he was very excited about his new position.
He said that: “My goals for the Puerto Rican National teams are to be the number one senior team within the Caribbean Football Union and in the top four in CONCACAF."
Puerto Rico's Caribbean competition for one of the top three CFU spots is Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and his former side Haiti, who finished third in the CFU World Cup qualifying for the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada. For CONCACAF sides, Puerto Rico must jump past traditional powers Canada, Mexico and the United States, as well as developing forces in Costa Rica and Trinidad & Tobago, the latter who recently appointed former Canadian and Italian National Team Coach Carolina Morace to lead them. For Puerto Rico's youth sides, Borkowski said that he: “wants to finish within the top three in the CFU at both the U-20 and U-17 level."
Puerto Rico should feel fortunate with their selection of the experienced Shek Borkowski. In five years in Haiti, he took the U-15 and U-20 sides to CFU championships—with the U-15's winning a CONCACAF crown a few years back—while his U-17's finished in second.
Borkowski, a native of Poland who played at the University of Akron, started FC Indiana in Goshen, Indiana (population 30,000) in 2000. FC Indiana played their first senior game in June of 2004 when they beat the Australian National Women's Team 1-0, which was preparing for the Athens, Greece Olympic Games. FC Indiana quickly became a juggernaut of American amateur leagues, winning two WPSL crowns (2005 and 2007), two U.S. Open Cup titles (2005 and 2008) and a W-League runners-up spot (2008).
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