They played to a 0-0 draw in their opening encounter of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) club championship on Friday at the Guyana National Stadium, but one thing is certain Alpha United will be looking for that elsusive win when the two sides meet again today.
Alpha United and Puerto Rico’s River Plate will meet at the Georgetown Cricket Club ground this afternoon in the second match of what was supposed to be an away fixture for Alpha.
The two teams will battle it out from 3.30pm.
Friday night’s stalemate was the second by the two teams in as many matches after the two sides faced each other in another tournament last year.
That match also ended in a draw.
Their CFU encounter saw the squads contesting 90 minutes of close calls that could not be converted because the attackers had no proper finishing near goal or the defence moved quickly and broke down the plays in the early stages.
One of the most eventful moments for both sides was the red card Alpha’s Abassy Mc Pherson was dealt.
This was a chance for the River Plate side to capitalize on the advantage but Alpha put up stout resistance which kept the visiting team at bay.
The match could have gone either way since both teams had numerous opportunities to take the lead but the efforts all came to naught.
River Plate looked very composed in the midfield but their defense withered at times and the strikers found it hard to get past the Alpha defence. It was evident that they were not at full potential on the night and will definitely be looking to redeem themselves in the match today.
Head coach of the home team Wayne ‘Wiggy’ Dover told Stabroek Sport that despite the end result he thought his team’s performance was very good given the circumstance they were put under.
“I thought the performance overall was good given that we were a man down early in the match. We made a few mistakes which I think caused us not to win the game but we did show good character and played hard.”
He added: “We were good defensively, as I mentioned that we were a man down but we managed to contain them and even had them on the back-foot at times. The guys made sure they get their shape and were compact so they had no sort of space to go through.”
Dover noted that they are looking forward to their battle today since it is very important and that they hope to come out on top.
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