Soccer squad set to take on Turks and Caicos

Thu, Jun 30th 2011, 02:21 PM

The mission for The Bahamas' senior men's national soccer team is quite clear. For the players chosen to represent the country in the first game of a home-and-away series, this weekend in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, the goal is to come back with a win. The 18-member squad knows that a win, on their opponent's home turf, will increase their chances of qualifying for the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football's (CONCACAF) main draw, which will also put them closer to qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. A shot up the ranking charts will take place if they are able to stop the Turks and Caicos team in the two-leg battle. This Saturday, Team Bahamas, led Nesley Jean, will take to the field at 4:00 p.m., for the kick-off. The last time The Bahamas senior men's national team challenged a regional country in a World Cup qualifying tournament, was in 2008. Executive member in the Bahamas Football Association (BFA) Larry Minns noted the importance of this game and the challenges that lie ahead. "We recently found out about the game so the extension had to be given to all the countries playing, since it was a short notice," said Minns. "Team Bahamas will be made up of three professionals, eight collegiate players and a few high school players. We lost about 13 players from the last World Cup qualifying team that we had when we played against Jamaica, who by the way, had all professional players at that time. At the time we had to play Jamaica we only had one guy who had played professionally but not at that high level. Now we have three professionals. They are not playing at high, high levels, but at least they are professionals. "This team is very young. The average age of this team is 23. There are Nesley Jean and Mackinson Letidor at 26, who are expected to lead the team. I am confident that they are going to give it their all. I don't want to underestimate our opponents, but there are some differences between us and the Turks and Caicos Islands. One, we are independent and two, all of our players must be Bahamian... for them that is not the case. We won't allow these factors to stop us from going in there and completing the first part of the mission." The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands were among the 10 countries listed in the preliminary round of play hoping to advance to the first group phase. Since The Bahamas is ranked at number 31, a first round bye was not given. They will have to fight their way past the Turks and Caicos Islands in order to challenge the top ranked countries in the next round. Minns said: "We have to beat them because it helps with the FIFA rankings. Believe it or not they are ranked 193 and we are at 196 in the world. The reason why we have lower rankings is because rankings are based on play. You have to be playing continously in order to keep up with the rankings. It is like a point system. We haven't participated in any World Cup events since 2008, so the last three years saw us drop. We dropped from 138 to 196. We need a win to get our rankings back so we are going all out. "The team, like I said earlier, they are ready. Turks and Caicos have a guy who plays in the MLS (Major League Soccer), Garvin Glinton. We played against him the last time we played them in 2007. From my understanding he is not going to be there so that increases our chances further. We will now have the top goal scorer in Nesley Jean with three goals at international play. Garvin has four goals. I know they have a ton of expatriate players so we really don't know what they will look like. We do have some sort of idea how their game will be ran because Matthew Green is their Technical Director. He used to work here in Nassau and assisted in our programs, so play with them will be interesting." The second leg of the home-and-away series will be played in New Providence, July 9, at the Roscoe A.L. Davies Field. That game has a 5:00 p.m. kick-off time.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian

 Sponsored Ads