The culmination of the Digicel Schools Football Championship will occur in the evening at 19:00hrs, pitting first time finalists St Ignatius and Carmel in battle at the Ministry of Education ground, Carifesta Avenue and Petra’s Director Troy Mendonca says he is anticipating a wonderful final. .
Today’s contest is a result of contrasting semi-final wins at the same venue Wednesday evening when St Ignatius, the Region #9 champions, secured their finals appearance following a 3-1 victory of Region #1 unit Waramuri in the ‘Hinterland Derby’.
Carmel’s ascension to the final was much more dramatic and storied as they summoned the greatest comeback in the history of the tournament.
The Smythe Street outfit overcame a 0-3 halftime deficit, a 3-4 second half discrepancy and a 4-5 extra time deficit, to prevail 3-2 on penalty kicks against traditional giant, and Region #7 winners DC Caesar Fox, formerly Waramadong.
It was also their second comeback in the event, as a similar feat was achieved against Region #8 champions Kato. Carmel will hope to avoid a hat-trick of such occurrences.
From a statistical standpoint, St Ignatius are the superior side as they boast impressive numbers on either side of the ball. Offensively, St Ignatius has recorded 24 goals during the national championships. On the defensive end, they have only conceded four times. This level of efficiency and balance also resulted in wins against Tucville, Buxton, and President’s College.
On the other hand, Carmel’s numbers pale in comparison. The Georgetown unit, which also defeated Berbice Educational Trust and Dolphin Secondary during the campaign, has recorded 14 conversions. From the defensive perspective, Carmel Secondary has allowed eight goals, five of which occurred in the previous match.
Prior to the final, DC Caesar Fox will oppose Waramuri in the third place encounter from 17:00hrs.
Meanwhile, Mendonca, Co-Director of the tournament coordinating group, the Petra Organization, said, “Definitely I am expecting a wonderful final and a very competitive game. It will be a match of grit against talent and the fans can expect an exciting match.”
According to Mendonca, “From my experiences with tournaments, this is the crème de crème of the event. Even though the structure is an elimination format which we don’t favour, the fact of the matter is that it includes all the available teams in the country and is spread across all 10 regions and that is massive.”
He added, “This is a tournament that the fans look forward to and has earned its reputation within the football community. The teams that will be competing in the final had to work hard to get where they are, they were not favoured and had no advantages, and it’s a reflection of two teams that worked hard and played within the confines of the rules and deserve to be here and whoever wins deserves the title.”
“The competition is clearly leveling off and going forward the preparation will be put into place by the respective schools to compete. Everyone is now seeing that the championship is more open than before, and this will ignite school football much more. One of the major positives that will occur is that students will remain in school to compete because they have to meet certain criteria such as attendance rate to play”, Mendonca further added.
