A WIN AT all costs! That’s the situation facing Barbados as they play unfancied Montserrat in their second Group “B” Digicel Caribbean Cup qualifying football match at Warner Park here, tonight.
With Barbados drawing 1-1 with St Kitts-Nevis and hosts St Vincent and the Grenadines blanking Montserrat 7-0 in Wednesday’s opening double header, it means the Bajan Tridents can’t afford a slip up against the weakest team in the group.
“I don’t know whether it will be big or small but we have to win. We need to get the three points,” coach Thomas Jordan told WEEKEND SPORT.
Prior to Wednesday’s thrashing by the Vincy Heat, Jordan admitted he had never seen Montserrat, who are ranked 82 places below Barbados, in action, but said he spent the night observing them to decide on what strategy to employ in their first international against the volcano-ravished Leeward Islands country.
“It was a two-fold situation in terms of watching Montserrat and at the same time, really planning for the Vincentian game (on Sunday) because they will be the biggest threat in terms of rivals but we have to win both games,” Jordan pointed out.
It may mean having some additional fire-power upfront with Mario Harte starting alongside Riviere Williams and allowing captain Norman Forde to revert to a midfield play-making role, after he was employed as a forward against St Kitts-Nevis.
“Norman is probably one of our better finishers and we were trying to get the ball to him and Riviere, but obviously the Kittitians were very tight in their defence and they were very wary of what we were trying.
“Even though in the second half, we did make some penetrative runs, they were not able to score the goals as planned,” Jordan said.
Jordan, who has endured a tough time as head coach with five defeats in the national team’s last seven matches, dating back to the 2008 Digicel final in Jamaica, said Wednesday’s stalemate was satisfactory.
“It was a fair result considering what we went through before. The Kittitians had the better of the first half and we scored and we had the better of the second half and they scored,” Jordan said.
“It was an even game in terms of possession overall and although we missed a few chances that I thought we should’ve put away, I’m satisfied with the result at this time, the coach added.
But Jordan said he would be trying to get the defenders to be more energised without playing too high.
“The Kittitians were a lot faster than us and once they played the ball through the spaces, they were always going to give us trouble.
“That is something that we have to get straighten out before the next game,” he said.
“We had a few problems in the central defence in terms of agility and speed but we will work on that. I think they defended a bit too high and gave themselves not much space in front of them, whereas they should’ve defended a bit further back and allow the space so that they had a chance to tackle,” Jordan said.
He also conceded that the team’s tactics included marking St Kitts-Nevis’ goalscorer George “Yellow Man” Isaac, very closely.
“But obviously, he’s a quick player and he moves a lot and he’s very hard to track down all the time. We did our best to try to contain him but he’s a very nimble player and we were not able to control him at that point in time when they made the fast break and that was our downfall again,” Jordan said.
St Kitts and St Vincent and the Grenadines will clash in the feature match at 8:30 p.m.
