Clarendon College will open the defence of their ISSA daCosta Cup football title today when they take on Edwin Allen in a Group E game at Jamaica College, starting at 12:30 pm, the first game of a double-header as the season gets under way much later than usual.

The daCosta Cup, like the Corporate Area Manning Cup, will be contested for the first time since 2019 after the 2020-21 season was cancelled due to restrictions on movement and gatherings by the Government because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Another 23 games are set to be played tomorrow.

Fifty-two schools will contest the daCosta Cup and another 22 will take part in the Manning Cup, and in both competitions, the champions will be crowned in January, the first time in living memory.

The first two rounds will be played before the Christmas break with the schools that have qualified for the next rounds, as well as the knockout competitions, to return for the ending of the tournaments.

As with most teams, both Clarendon College and Edwin Allen will be virtually starting over, retaining only a few members of their teams from two years ago.

Richard Palmer, the manager of the Clarendon College team, described his team as “young”, and saying they had retained only two players from the squad that beat Dinthill Technical in the final to win back-to-back titles after also winning in 2018.

“We are building again,” Palmer told the Jamaica Observer yesterday as he watched the team go through their paces under the watchful eyes of Coach Lenworth Hyde.

“We retained just two players from 2019, so there are no real expectations this year. But we have to play as these boys love to play football and we have to support them,” he said.

Meanwhile, Edwin Allen, who are yet to beat Clarendon College, retained seven players from their most recent squad, four from their starting team. Coach Tafari Burton said he would rate his chances to get out of the zone an eight out of 10 “as long as the boys listen and follow instructions”.

Edwin Allen earned a 3-0 win over the nine-time champions in the first round of the 2013 season in the boardroom after Clarendon College were sanctioned after winning the game, but were found to have used an ineligible player.

Their preparation, he said, was not as good as they had hoped for. “Training was staggered due to the pandemic and here we are off to a late start because things were unsure for a long time,” he explained.

Admitting that he was “excited” by the return of schoolboy football, Burton said: “I don’t know about others; I can only speak about us, and we are happy that the Ministry of Health and ISSA have given the boys a chance after the last season was cancelled.”

Burton said Edwin Allen wanted to win games and titles as “this is important as it builds confidence and the team makes a name for themself”.