Barbados senior men’s national football team is one win away from winning their group, and earning promotion back to League B in the Concacaf Nations League.
The Bajan Tridents, currently sitting top of Group A in League C with a perfect record of six points from two matches, are set to take on United States Virgin Islands (USVI) on Wednesday night at the Wildey Turf.
If victorious, Barbados who is unbeaten so far in this edition of the tournament, will take an unassailable lead in the Group with nine points.
It would be on the back of two impressive results against USVI and the Bahamas at the Bethlehem Soccer Complex in St Croix last month. Since then the squad has been hard at work going their paces ahead of the crucial reverse matches against the same opponents.
Since his full-time appointment as head coach, it will be Kent Hall’s first home game in charge and the former Barbados midfielder is optimistic of victory.
“I think we have genuine belief that we are going to win the games but it is very important to understand that nobody is coming to give you points. International football does not play like that. We have to make sure that we apply ourselves,” Hall said.
“We are going for another six points but the biggest things right now would be to keep everybody focus. It is easy to drop your guard when things are getting comfortable so we have to make sure that everyone stays focussed. We have a responsibility to the public to put on a good show,” he added.
Hall however admitted that the preparation this campaign has been impacted.
“Unfortunately it has been a stuttered at times, it is always nice when you are in that camp environment and you have everyone able to train on queue. There are certain things that are hindering at times but once we get on the pitch, the guys have been applying themselves.”
Nevertheless, the head coach is calling on on local fans to flock to the turf to show support for the squad.
“We hope that the home fans come out and support the guys. We know that sometimes we may have some players that are foreign based and the fans don’t have a big relationship with those players but I am hoping that with this squad the fans would recognise and we would get the support that we want for the matches.”
“We are setting our sights solely on these games right now but we have to be mindful that they are games further on that we have to prepare for and we must be able to have the resources to be at our very best so those considerations went into this. There is a lot of talent here although not everyone has the international experience but it is a situation whether we can give people the opportunities to prove themselves,” he said.
Hall also gave an insight into the style of play fans can anticipate.
“You can expect that when we have the ball, we will be definitely trying to play football. We want to be adaptable to whatever situations. We are going to try to keep it on the floor and when we get it there, we will try to move it quickly and it should be easy on the eye to get the ball in the back of the net.”
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