THEY lost 0-2, but we believe Cavalier Football Club’s display against star-studded Inter Miami in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Thursday night was an excellent advertisement for Jamaica’s football.

Even without World Cup-winning Argentine legend Mr Lionel Messi, who missed the game — rested, we have been told — few expected the hosts to be seriously tested by the Jamaican club.

As it turned out, Cavalier easily could have come away from the first leg of their Concacaf Champions Cup Round of 16 tie with at least a point, ahead of the second leg at the National Stadium in St Andrew on Thursday.

And there are those who will argue that, based on goal scoring chances and what’s being viewed by some as an officiating error, Cavalier easily could have earned a famous win.

Cavalier’s coach, Mr Rudolph Speid, would have been especially pleased after expressing great confidence in the build-up to meeting Inter Miami.

Said he: “This is a team [Cavalier] that, whenever we are the underdogs that is when we come good…”

He also said that his players would not be at a disadvantage because of youth — with the reported average age being just over 20.

“They might be young, but …. They all know what they have to do, and they are going to do the best that they can…”

So it proved, and all Jamaicans should be proud, given confirmation by Cavalier’s first-leg performance of the continuing growth of Jamaican football.

It’s yet more of a confidence boost, ahead of the big push later this year for the Reggae Boyz to qualify for next year’s FIFA World Cup in USA, Canada, and Mexico.

Such was the threat posed by Cavalier in Florida that we do not doubt that Inter Miami will be aiming to field its strongest team in Jamaica come Thursday, which should mean that, barring injury or ill health, Mr Messi will be in line to start.

A cautionary thought for us is that Mr Messi has now missed two games in a row for his club, which is unusual for him.

Asked in a post-match press conference in Florida on Thursday night how he felt on recognising that Mr Messi would not be playing, an assertive Mr Speid declared: “We didn’t come to play Lionel Messi, we came to play Inter Miami…”

Nonetheless, Mr Speid and all other Jamaican football lovers are undoubtedly over the moon that Mr Messi is in line to play before a packed National Stadium on Thursday night. If he does play, Mr Messi will be the biggest international football star to grace a Jamaican football field since the late Brazilian Mr Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known everywhere as Pelé, in the 1970s.

We agree with Mr Speid in the build-up to the two-way tie that the expected presence of Mr Messi “… is not a Cavalier thing, it is a Jamaica thing ….” And that “…bringing him to Jamaica will be so good for Jamaica’s football because you are going to see an outpouring of players who want to play football just because Messi would have come here”.

Like all football-loving Jamaicans, we eagerly wait.