De­spite a 3-2 re­sult in the first leg of the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup Play-Ins at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um on Thurs­day night, na­tion­al coach Derek King is dis­ap­point­ed with his team’s per­for­mance.

“They did not fol­low the game plan,” King made it clear at the post-match press con­fer­ence af­ter­wards.

Mere months af­ter the So­ca War­riors were top­pled from League ‘A’ of the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League to League ‘B’ with a sec­ond-from-bot­tom fin­ish in qual­i­fy­ing Group ‘A’, King’s charges were made to come from be­hind with a third-minute own-goal from Ryan Telfer to pre­vail in the en­counter.

Dan­taye Gilbert lev­elled the score in the 15th minute, while goals from strik­er Re­al Gill and de­fend­er Justin Gar­cia in the 44th minute put the game safe­ly in their hands, though Bran­don Satchell scored a late goal to of­fer lit­tle hope to the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da team.

The So­ca War­riors will now en­ter the sec­ond leg at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo on Mon­day with the be­lief that they can ad­vance to the next phase of the Gold Cup Qual­i­fiers. And with the away-goal rule be­ing ap­plied, the vis­i­tors will have to dou­ble their ef­forts to tri­umph away from home.

Since his ap­point­ment as head coach, King was giv­en his first vic­to­ry, but not in the man­ner he would have want­ed it. “ We came away with a win, but I was re­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed in our style of play. I think when we went up 3-1, it was a lit­tle bit un­pro­fes­sion­al in our style of play. I think that we lost the ball in a good po­si­tion, and our ball speed has to be a bit faster,” King said.

“In in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball, once you get a team that you could score against, you’d score your goals. I think I’d say I’m very dis­ap­point­ed. I wouldn’t say the re­sults, but the score­line as well; you know we con­ced­ed two goals as well. It’s a gen­er­al feel­ing that you left foot­ball in terms of qual­i­ty, and play­ers’ qual­i­ty has fall­en.”

King point­ed to the fact that his charges ap­peared to have un­der­es­ti­mat­ed their op­po­nents when they went 3-1 in the en­counter. This he wants to nip in the bud ear­ly, call­ing for a must-win at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um for his team to progress to the next round of the qual­i­fiers.

“Well, it’s im­por­tant that we don’t con­cede. We need a vic­to­ry as well, so we must go there and give our sup­port­ers a good per­for­mance. I’m ask­ing the pub­lic to come out as usu­al and sup­port. We’re in a re­build­ing phase, but we have to kind of stop say­ing that and start to fo­cus on the fu­ture and fo­cus on ac­tu­al­ly build­ing.”

“I think, come the next game, it will be much tighter. We have a lot of time to pre­pare, as any in­ter­na­tion­al win­dow does; that’s how it is. I’m sure you’re ex­pect­ing a bet­ter An­tigua team com­ing down in Trinidad to get to it,” King con­clud­ed.

TEAMS

AN­TIGUA/BAR­BU­DA

21 Sha­hoi Dorsett (gk), 2 Amir Da­ley, 3 Ky­lano Isaac, 8 Sean Tom­lin­son, 9 Dion Pereira, 10 Thomas James Bram­ble, 11 Quin­ton Grif­fith, 14 Jahz­in­ho O’Gar­ro, 16 Kay­onte George, 17 Leroy Gra­ham, 19 D’an­dre Bish­op

RES

1 Jay­den Mar­tin (gk), 18 Zaieem Scott (gk), 4 Da­jari Barth­ley, 5 Shako­re Si­mon, 6 Tyrik Hugh­es, 7 Ra­heem De­ter­ville, 12 Ke­moi Walsh, 13 Ash­ley Nathaniel George, 15 Daryl Mas­si­cot, 20 Bran­don Satchell, 22 Blavion James, 23 Vaughn Jack­son

TT

22 Den­zil Smith, 2 Deron Payne, 4 Ja­heim Joseph, 7 Ryan Telfer, 8 Luke Phillip, 10 Mo­lik Khan, 14 Wayne Fred­er­ick II, 15 Dan­taye Gilbert, 17 Justin Gar­cia, 18 An­dre Ram­per­sad, 20 Re­al Gill

SUBS

1 Jahiem Wick­ham, 21 Teshorne Ra­goo, 3 An­dre Ray­mond, 5 Ne­veal Hack­shaw, 6 Kai­him Thomas, 9 Nathaniel James, 11 Kathon St Hillaire, 12 Sher­vohnez Hamil­ton, 13 Ali Kaz­im Nakhid, 16 Daniel David, 19 Nicholas Dil­lon, 23 Noah Pow­der