Barbados head coach, former Trinidad and Tobago international,
Russell Latapy. Photo by George Alleyne
Caribbean Life, Sept. 25-Oct. 1, 2020 29
By George Alleyne
Barbados is welcoming the
Confederation of North, Central
America and Caribbean
Football’s (CONCACAF) decision
to postpone its World
Cup 2022 in Qatar qualifiers
to next year.
This island was originally
scheduled to take on rising
CONCACAF star Panama
next month but the organisation
announced last week
that this and other fixtures
across the region, “will
not be played in the FIFA
match windows of October
or November 2020, and will
instead begin with the first
round in the FIFA match
window of March 2021.”
The Barbados Nation
newspaper has quoted the
island’s head coach, former
Trinidad and Tobago international,
Russell Latapy saying,
“it gives us some more time
to prepare and get all of our
resources together.”
“Yes, we would continue
to prepare. We would use
this time to get the players
in the gym to help with
injury prevention and also
strengthen and develop some
of the younger players.”
The CONCACAF statement
that followed a meeting
with member associations
indicated, “many parts
of the region continue to
have very challenging public
health situations, and
that has been a key factor
in this decision. Additionally,
several countries across
the confederation have travel
restrictions and quarantine
requirements, which would
make international football
involving 30 national teams
extremely difficult.”
The Barbados vs Panama
match was just one of
a region-wide schedule that
would have seen 14 of the
15-member Caribbean Community
organisation (CARICOM)
playing in fixtures
among the 30 teams, ranked
six to 35 by FIFA in the first
round of playoffs, all of which
have been moved to 2010.
Though the Barbados
national team, the Tridents,
began training in July guided
by the country’s Covid-
19 regulations there might
have been some concern
about their first fixture in
the World Cup qualifiers as
the Panamanians have been
among the most improved
regional teams.
The Central American
qualified for the Russia World
Cup for the first time in 2018
and is regarded as hot. Manager,
Thomas Christiansen,
was looking forward to what
he saw as easy encounters
with Barbados and other Caribbean
teams and told CONCACAF,
“I think it’s been a
good draw for us, with all
due respect to the teams that
we are going to face, Barbados,
Dominica, Anguilla
and Dominican Republic. I
think at present moment the
Dominican Republic is the
toughest of those, but certainly
all of the teams are
difficult and more so when
playing away when we have
to take a long trip.”
Latapy, however, had said
that his side would be no
walk-over.
“We have a talented team
and if we are able to put everything
together at the right
time, we can become very
difficult,” he said to CONCACAF.
“But it is a fairly young
team, the average age is 22
or 23, so it is more of a team
that we are trying to build
for the future. I hope we
can get the experience from
these games and use that to
try to get to the Gold Cup.”
Barbados gets World Cup breather