National women’s coach Damian Briggs described his team’s emphatic 5-0 victory over Barbados in the World Cup Qualifiers on Monday, as a tactical affair until they got it right.
Striker Kennya ‘Ya Ya’ Cordner scored once in the first half, but the floodgates did not opened until second half of play with the visitors blasting in four more goals. Barbadian forward Acacia Small could have scored from a defensive blunder in the centre of the field; however, Small could not make use of the opportunity.
Briggs’ charges now face a much tougher test against Honduras on March 3 in their second match in Group F. They are scheduled to play two matches away and two at home for the right to be the winner of the group that will earn automatic qualification. Monday’s triumph against Barbados was expected, but it came only after the team settled and executed according to their game plan, Briggs told the media.
Asked what he expected from the match, Briggs said, “I think for us, Barbados caused us a few problems that we had to work out, and we had to go back into what we’ve been practicing over the last month or month and a half and play the style of football that we wanted to play. The second part, the second half, largely, we did that, and that’s where we got most of our success from.”
“I think from our studying them a little bit, we knew that any time they had a bit of time on the board, they would try and play down the sides because their forward is quite quick. Yeah, she caused us a bit of trouble. Like I said, when we had to deal with it, I felt for Barbados that they came at us, and they didn’t sit back. It was a game of, I guess, tactical battle until we got it right.”
The T&T team returned home yesterday and were set to take the field to go through the areas they may have blundered in.
The win has set the pace for the women’s game to escalate on local soil. Among the small but vociferous crowd at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown were large groups of T&T supporters, which helped motivate the players and the team.
According to Briggs, the more his charges work together, the more they will come to terms and play the way they want to play.
“I think trust is a big thing, and facing different challenges, working out how we can cope with them and learning from the experiences.”
After the Honduras match, the T&T team will face El Salvador in April next year, the last FIFA. El Salvador and Honduras were scheduled to play their first game yesterday at the Estadio Jorge ‘El Magico’ in San Salvador.
