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Haiti proves they are the best team in Caribbean Digicel Football tourney

By Paul Scope

Monday, January 29, 2007

The just concluded Digicel Caribbean Cup turned out to be a great success for the Caribbean Football Union and the sponsors, Digicel.

Digicel received worldwide exposure due to television highlights and local exposure throughout the Caribbean with group stages being held in Antigua, Barbados, Cuba, Curacao, Guyana, Jamaica, Martinique, St. Thomas, Surinam and Trinidad.

The crowd for the final in Port of Spain was 18,000 - very respectable for this region.

We almost hosted the playoff group here in early December, only for it to be scuppered by Dominican Republic and Haiti players being denied entry to the U.S. and therefore making the cost of travel to Bermuda prohibitive in the eyes of the CFU.

Their decision to move the playoff group to Trinidad (after the Bermuda Football Association stood firm against a switch to Haiti) proved decisive with Dominican Republic ironically pulling out, this time for economical reasons and Haiti having the time to prepare for a full three weeks in Trinidad before the games against Bermuda.

By contrast, the current amateur nature of our game, meant that our players returned to playing domestically, with the inevitable exposure to injuries.

At the end of the day, the best team won, as confirmed by Haiti going on to win the overall competition, but the hastily arranged two-legged affair, certainly reduced our giant-killer chances.

Haiti's preparation, with the two games in Trinidad against us would have helped enormously, was probably a factor in their success.

However, evidenced by their triumph, they are a good side and certainly a powerhouse in the Caribbean. With 9 million people and no rival sports to speak of - no cricket or baseball - they will always be a force in this region. Having been there recently with the Under-20s, I can attest that whilst conditions in Haiti are generally desperate, their football facilities are actually of a high standard.

A big part of the aid they receive must go into football. Basically, they are fulltime professionals.

The beaten finalists Trinidad also fall into the fulltime pro categories, although for this competition they relied on their "local" pros and didn't bring back their overseas based stars.

It will be a different story for the Gold Cup which both Trinidad and Haiti qualified for along with beaten semi-finalists, Cuba and Guadeloupe.

For Guadeloupe, the Gold Cup will be a rare chance to play in a high level FIFA competition, because as a "department" of France they are not members of FIFA.

Their sister "department", Martinique, also did well in this Digicel, actually beating Haiti along the way (albeit 1-0 in Martinique) and qualifying for the final stage.

Guyana were another team that did very well (they also hosted a group stage) and in Nigel Coddrington, they arguably had the player of the tournament. Coddrington was also the leading scorer of the competition with 10 goals.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines (the only other team to beat Bermuda) showed they were still a force to be reckoned with although their aging team will need a revamp.

Their excellent Serb coach has had the Vincy Heat playing at a high level for the past four years.

Barbados had a good run, hosting a group stage and on the back of their excellent captain, Norman Forde and their recently discovered Bajan/ pros Paul Iffel and Mark McCrammon who were been born and bred in England.

Ultimately, the absence of these two pros - who play for Crystal Palace and Doncaster Rovers respectively - cost them in the finals where they failed to get out of the group which included Trinidad and Haiti.

Bermuda's draw against Barbados, in Barbados, was arguably our best performance in the Digicel.

Reduced to 10 men and 1-0 after only three minutes due to Timmy Figeureido's harsh sending off, we showed a lot of guts and skill to equalise and almost got the win we deserved that would have put us straight in the finals without the need to get over the Haiti barrier.

The 4-0 trouncing of Bahamas was also an impressive performance with Keith Jennings and Kwame Steede really gelling well in our midfield. Sadly, Keith's absence due to injury proved crucial in the games against Haiti.

Other Bermuda players who shone during the campaign, were both of the goalkeepers used, Figureido and Nigel Burgess. Stan Lewis (before he too was injured in a domestic game), Kevin Richards and the always excellent John Nusum.

Other players, such as Darius Cox, Jelani Scott and Domico Coddington established themselves as international players and we now have a good group of motivated players with a good team spirit.

The hope is that whoever is in charge of the National Team in the future, can build on the progress Kyle has undoubtedly made.

Paul Scope was Bermuda's assistant national football coach during the Digicel Cup campaign.