It was a title we set out to win, says coach Gilbert
FOLLOWING eight pulsating days of intense play in 16 matches and some good quality sporting excitement, Jamaica captured the Caribbean Football Union Women’s Under-20 title by beating Trinidad and Tobago 1-0 in the final at the Anthony Spaulding Sport Complex on Sunday night.
Fittingly, Khadija Shaw, who was voted the most valuable player of the tournament, scored in minute 13. It was her sixth goal in the tournament and was good enough to land the gambit and gave Jamaica a well-deserved victory. Apart from some good individual play from amongst the other seven teams, none outshone Jamaica in performance.
The Dominican Republic looked the team with the best network and they and Cuba reached the last four with both playing for third position with the Dominican Republic edging Cuba 2-1 in their final game, which was the curtain-raiser for the CFU final.
The principal focus of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago coming to the tournament from the outstart was to qualify for the bigger CONCACAF tournament and by virtue of contesting the Caribbean Football Union Final, will now advance to the CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championships to be hosted in the Cayman Islands on January 9 through 19, 2014.
Eight teams from across the region will then vie for the three available spots in the FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup to be held in Canada later that year in July, with Canada as hosts as fourth team qualifier.
“It was a title we set out to win and although we played mostly in patches the young ladies must be commend highly for a job well done,” coach Xavier Gilbert said.
His counterpart Izler Brown had nothing but high praises for her Soca Princesses. “We created enough chances that could have given us a different result. But our main aim was to reach this stage. We did it with only our local players and that is speaking volumes for our women’s football. We can now look forward for much improvement in our play in January when we will have the services of our overseas-based players. But for now we did a great job and the girls should be highly commended for doing a decent job to get us where we are now.”
To bring the curtains down on the CFU leg of the journey, individuals and teams were specially recognised for their talent, and for the way they played the beautiful game.
