Yesterday they had a chance to see and place their hands on the beautiful trophy that the winning team in this year’s Digicel nationwide schools football tournament will take home and one is sure that the respective captains of Wismar/Christianburg and Chase Secondary Schools have been motivated to be in sole possession of that coveted trophy come tomorrow.
The two teams are the last two left standing after a grueling tournament which involved the crème de la crème of the nation’s schools in a tournament which has grown to become the marquee football event in the annual calendar of school footballers.
The winners will receive one million dollars while the runners up will receive $600,000.
Chase Academy and Wismar/Christianburg Multilateral will face off tomorrow at the National Stadium in the final of the nationwide Digicel
Schools football tournament.
Wismar/Christianburg, the Linden juggernaut, has won the tournament the last three years but there seems to be no let up and the team’s desire to make it four in a row is as strong as their opponent’s ambition to become champs in their first attempt.
“We are determined to end on a positive note and that is successfully defending our title,” said Tevin Crawford at a press conference held by sponsors Digicel at their Head Office in Kingston.
His coach Anthony Stephens was also adamant that his charges will be able to produce their usual `finals’ showing which he feels should be able to do the trick.
Stephens has overseen his team’s victory in each of the previous three finals appearance.
Yesterday he thanked the telephone company for its continued commitment to schools football whilst urging other corporations to follow Digicel’s initiative.
Stephens pointed out that his team’s opponents in the final Chase Academy do have some very talented players in their line up and as such said he envisages a very good final.
Chase Academy’s ace in the hole is none other than Vurlon Mills, national football par excellence who is the head coach and he too took the opportunity at yesterday’s press conference to thank Digicel for organizing the tournament which he said was a worthwhile investment in the youths of today.
“The mood among the players is positive, they all know the importance of the game, they know the quality of the opposition and they know that they will have to play well to dethrone the champs,” said Mills of the first time finalists who will be looking to create the biggest upset in the history of the competition tomorrow.
Chase’s Captain Amanackie Forde expressed confidence in his team and said that their goal from day one was to win this prestigious event.
They became only the second team from Georgetown to reach the final with a comfortable 3-1 win over Annai Secondary in their semi-final encounter at the Leonora Sports Facility earlier this week.
The final is expected to commence at 6pm.
