Alpha United Head Coach, Wayne Dover says he is confident his charges will be successful when they battle USA’s Portland Timbers in their second match of the CONCACAF Champions League on August 19th at the National Stadium.
Speaking during a press conference held at the Waterchris Hotel, Dover said “We are very confident of getting a result on Tuesday. Our sessions have been geared towards rectifying the mistakes we made in the first game to get the result”.
Dover further said “Having played the first game against Olimpia and not having the result as expected, we went back to the drawing board. We have worked on finishing during our sessions and the approach on Tuesday will be offensive minded”.
“We have make sure we get the three points, anything less will put us further down in the group”, added Dover.
Questioned about possible scouting material gathered in preparation for the matchup against the North Americans, Dover said “We have watched them on tape and from there we made out what to do in offence and how we will defend against them”.
He further noted “They have very different style to the Latin American teams who play more possession-based and with space. They play with a style similar to the Caribbean teams”.
“I have seen them play about six times and they play almost every time one way. I don’t think they will play differently for Alpha”, he added.
Club President Odinga Lumumba during a brief comment said “We suffered in the first game from match readiness and we needed foreign teams to test us. We are in a better position now”.
He noted “This is a success story, we defeated the champion club of Jamaica, Harbour View and the champion club of Trinidad and Tobago, Defence Force to get here. The team we played was a former CONCACAF Champion and the team we will play is a champion club. These are big clubs with wealthy owners”.
Lumumba further said “We are now an international team and in order to compete we have to bring in the best possible players. My interest is to make Guyana football a force, unless you have strong players and strong clubs you can’t have a strong national team”.
Alpha United opened their CONCACAF Champions League home campaign with a 1-0 loss to Honduras outfit Olimpia on August 5th.
