Western Tigers head-coach Calvin ‘Flu’ Allen has declared that he is confident his charges can win the Petra Organization/Limacol football championships when they battle the Guyana Police Force (GPF) in the final on Saturday.
Western Tigers sealed their place in the final billed for the Georgetown Football Club (GFC) ground after edging Santos 3-2 in the semi-final at the aforesaid venue.
Conversely, the lawmen edged Linden’s Winners Connection 2-1 at the same venue.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sports, Allen affirmed: “In terms of what we are doing, the mood is good and the players are confident. I am pretty confident we can come away with the victory. The players have been playing a lot of football lately but basically we have enough energy to finish the tournament on a high. “Preparation has been good, they [players] have been coming in their numbers and we are getting some quality work done. Some players have a few injuries but the preparation is going good. The players are upbeat and raring to go come game day,” he added.
Quizzed about the team’s focus heading into the final training sessions, he said: “We will focus more on the organization of the team going forward and defensively and basically get the team to play together because we have brought in a few players. All in all, the team is in a good place, we have shown that we can score goals early and can come from behind, so there is no question about our ability going forward. We just have to tighten defensively a little more.”
He added: “We have not played with the same starting 11 in the tournament due to injuries. That in of itself has hampered the chemistry. We have identified the weak areas and are working to rectify them before game day. Police has beaten us in the last final [we faced off in]. We have defeated them lately but it was not with the kind of satisfaction we wanted so everyone is focused on the task at hand.”
Asked about the quality of the tournament, Allen said: “I think it is a structured and well-run tournament. Competitively, the Stag Nation Cup had a lot lopsided wins, but this tournament is the opposite.
“There were a lot of games that were very close, both in the group and knockout rounds. To be honest, it was a much tougher tournament than most teams anticipated. I applaud the organizers and each club benefited at the end of the day,” he ended.
