The Cayman Islands Olympic Under-23s footballers go into their first major tournament since Hurricane Ivan hit three years ago almost to the day.
Brown is optimistic Photo: Ron Shillingford |
Ivan decimated the football programme and it has taken this long to regroup. Like the rest of the world, football is Cayman’s favourite sport and this is a new beginning. Reaching the Olympics in Beijing next year would be a great achievement by Cayman, but first they have to get through the qualifiers.
The youngsters, captained by Rene Carter, have trained hard for seven weeks now since new coach Carl Brown arrived from Jamaica. He was on the coaching staff with the celebrated Reggae Boyz who got to the World Cup Finals in 1998. Brown, 56, was also Jamaica’s head coach five times over a 23-year period as well as a Jamaican international for many years.
Cayman take on Puerto Rico in the first of their Group C matches in Cuba at the Estadio Pedro Marrero, Havana on Sunday. Then it’s Bermuda on Tuesday (11 September) and they play the hosts on Thursday (13 September). Puerto Rico are ranked one place below Cayman at 21st in the Caribbean rankings. Bermuda are ninth and Cuba fourth in the region. None will be easy matches and Brown is realistic about his.
He said: ‘It was always going to be a difficult task. We’ve had seven weeks hard training that’s gone really well. We don’t know much about the other teams. Puerto Rico change their team all the time. They get players from the US who have played in the MLS. We expect a tough time and we’re going as the underdogs.
‘I don’t really want to single out players I expect things from because this is more a team effort. We’ll play 4-4-2 and 5-3-2 and adjust accordingly. We know Cuba are going to be a tough one being the host nation, but at least we’ll have seen them play twice already.’
Group B matches will be played in Aruba at the same time involving Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica, Barbados and Aruba.
Group C matches
Sun 9 Sept
Cayman v Puerto Rico (5pm)
Cuba v Bermuda (7pm)
Tues 11 Sept
Cayman v Bermuda (5pm)
Cuba v Puerto Rico (7pm)
Thurs 13 Sept
Bermuda v Puerto Rico (5pm)
Cayman v Cuba (7pm)
Caribbean Football Union rankings
(world ranking in brackets)
1 Trinidad & Tobago (63)
2 Haiti (88)
3 Guyana (90)
4 Cuba (91)
5 Jamaica (95)
6 St Vincent & the Grenadines (104)
7 Barbados (119)
8 Suriname (123)
9 Bermuda (130)
10 Antigua & Barbuda (131)
11 Dominican Republic (140)
12 St Kitts & Nevis (141)
13 Bahamas (149)
14 Grenada (156)
15 St Lucia (158)
16 Turks & Caicos Islands (166)
17 Netherlands Antilles (177)
18 British Virgin Islands (179)
19 Dominica (184)
20 Cayman Islands (185)
21 Puerto Rico (194)
22 Anguilla (196)
23 US Virgin Islands (199)
23 Montserrat (199)
23 Aruba (199)
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