THIS IS the experience we were longing for and we will make the best of it.
The words of Barbados’ national coach, Chris King, ahead of tonight’s opening of the first international beach soccer tournament in Barbados.
Barbados will be joined by Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua, Guyana and England for the tournament at Brandon’s Beach.
“We were asking for this kind of experience outside of the CONCACAF championships for a while, so this competition is timely,” King said.
“We have never seen Guyana play before, but we know about the other Caribbean countries and we have watched England on video, so only Guyana are unknown to us.”
Optimistic Barbados’ first match is against the Antiguans and the local coach was cautiously optimistic about the result.
“All I will say is that the boys will give of their best and we are looking for the hometown support,” he said.
Antigua’s manager Ferdinand Abrahams said they are looking forward to the weekend “to gauge how the team is playing because we hope to be in The Bahamas for the world championship in May”.
“The game is growing in Antigua and we even have a league, so we are expecting big things in the future, but for now our focus is this tournament and later on the CONCACAF playoffs, where we will hopefully qualify for The Bahamas,” he added.
Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago will play the first game at 6 p.m. in what is expected to be a very competitive duel. It will be a busy night for the Guyanese who are also playing England in the final game at 9:30.
Learning experience
Guyana’s manager Mark Young said he had a young team and four of the players had international experience.
“Our expectation is to learn from the rest of the teams, especially England, who are more experienced. We are aiming to be a much better squad when we go to the CONCACAF championships,” he said.
England’s coach Terry Bowes said they were ready for competition and hoping to win their games.
“The game is not as advanced in England as far as structure is concerned, but we try to practise together as much as possible. Our league is very small, not where we want it to be, but we are trying to improve it all the time,” he said. (PR)
