After picking up an important advantage on home soil, Cavalier FC Head Coach Rudolph Speid has credited his players for their performance in the 1-0 win over Cibao FC of the Dominican Republic in the first leg of the Concacaf Caribbean Cup at the National Stadium on Tuesday.

The defending Jamaica Premier League champions are 90 minutes away from lifting the title after Shaquille Stein’s 20th-minute goal led them to victory, ending Cibao’s unbeaten run in the competition this season.

Cavalier also had goalkeeper Vino Barclett to thank after he pulled off a string of saves in the second half to ensure they head to the Dom Rep with their lead intact.

Speid says the team completed the mission well despite the one-goal margin.

“There’s a number of objectives we had and one of them was to not concede because of the away goal rule, so we achieved that. The other one was to try to get a lead; we didn’t get a big enough lead as we would have wanted but I’ll take what happened today anytime over any other score,” he said.

Star playmaker Dwayne “Busy” Atkinson, who provided the assist for Stein, only played the opening 45 minutes, as he’s been struggling with injury.

Speid says his contribution would have put them further ahead, but says he’ll be ready to make an impact in the second leg next week.

“We probably should have gotten another goal in the first half because we were pressing away, but once Atkinson wasn’t at his best and we pulled him, a lot of creativity goes. As everybody knows, this is Atkinson’s 10th assist for this short season and nine goals; he’s our most productive player and most productive player in Jamaica. He was just a big miss and I think that’s why the score is probably only one,” said Speid.

“He’ll be ready; there was nothing wrong with him. We’ll just fix him up some more and he’ll be ready to play in that game and we won’t pull him unless we have to.

Cibao Head Coach Scheldeur Sainvilus praised Cavalier’s performance but believes his team can overturn the deficit.

“We have a good team, Cavalier is a good team too but if we can play like how we played in the second half, we can win the game,” he said.

“We have to try do the same thing we did in the second half. Cavalier have a lot of players who are so fast so we have to try and take the ball and not lose the ball when we attack. If we don’t lose the ball, we can have a good game,” Sainvilus added.

However, Speid says he’s confident that Cavalier will return to Jamaica with the title.

“We’re not just a team who only scores at home. As you can see in this competition, we’re a team that scores anywhere. We’re not worried; we believe that on the day, we’ll be able to give a good account of ourselves and we’re not trying to draw the game, we’re going to try and win the game.”

The second leg takes place next Tuesday at the Cibao FC Stadium in Santiago. The winner will also qualify for the round of 16 of next year’s Concacaf Champions Cup and pocket over $31 million.