(Trinidad Express) Guyana national coach Leon Dover needs a favour from Trinidad and Tobago, who he describes as their “sister country.”
Dover hopes T&T will continue their winning streak in the Digicel Caribbean Cup Group F football qualifiers by beating Haiti when the teams meet from 6. 30 p.m. this evening at the Manny Ramjohn Stadium, Marabella.
After losing to T&T on Thursday night, Guyana have just one point from a 0-0 draw with Haiti on opening night. Meanwhile, T&T have already qualified for the Finals in Martinique following victories over Guyana (2-1) and SVG (6-2), while Haiti are second with four points.
But the Guyanese still have an outside chance of pipping the Haitians for the second qualifying spot in the group, provided T&T beat Haiti, while Guyana also have to win big when they meet bottom-placed St Vincent and the Grenadines in today’s 4 p.m. opening match.
“It’s a kind of tough situation,” Dover admitted. “We never wanted to be in a situation like this…… nevertheless we are. But you know we gonna be positive. We gonna remain positive and focus on coming out on top in the next game. The problems, as you can see are finishing, and we hope we can score as much goals as possible in the last game and hope now that Trinidad continues its winning streak and that we can qualify against Haiti on goal difference.”
If T&T coach Russell Latapy has his way, Dover may just get his wish. Latapy was quite pleased following his team’s victory which qualified the Soca Warriors for the Finals from November 28-December 5.
Asked how he would approach the Haiti match Latapy said: “My view is that I want us to be dominant again in Caribbean football. So, it doesn’t matter who we play in Caribbean football and in the CONCACAF zone. I want us to be dominant so we going to try and win every single game that we play against these opponents.”
The coach added: “I came up early tonight, and on Tuesday night, and I was able to see them (Haiti) play a bit. I think they have some similarities to Guyana in terms of the way they play. I think they are very compact. I think they are not an easy team to break down. But then again, we gonna play the way that I think we can play best to attain the results. And that is the way we will play against most opponents – to our strengths.”
Speaking following the Guyana win, Latapy said he was pleased. He explained that he used different combinations of players in both matches and it worked because T&T got the required result.
“First and foremost we achieved what we wanted to achieve, which was getting two victories after two games, and booking our ticket to Martinique. We have done that.” Latapy said.
“I thought that we were a lot more solid tonight than we were against St Vincent in the first part of the game. I though that we limited the chances of Guyana tonight and we passed the ball well.
“But in the end, in a manner of speaking, I would say we had to hang on a bit at the end, but that is credit to Guyana because I suppose their thought process would be that if they lose by two goals, or three goals, or four goals, they would have still lost the game. So, what they did is that the threw a lot of players into the attack and they left it two-vie-two at the back.”
“I though at the beginning of the second half we had a couple of chances that if we had buried them, we would have killed the game off.”
TODAY’S MATCHES:
(Manny Ramjohn Stadium, Marabella)
4 p.m. – Guyana v SVG
6.30 p.m. – T&T v Haiti
