Despite Cavalier FC starting their Concacaf Caribbean Cup title defence on a losing note, Head Coach Rudolph Speid says the club will do its best to bounce back as it navigates a period of transition.

The two-time reigning Jamaica Premier League (JPL) champions started their Group B campaign with a 2-0 away defeat to last year’s finalist Cibao FC of the Dominican Republic.

Omar De la Cruz and Carlos Ventura ensured Cibao exacted some revenge on Cavalier after losing in last year’s final on the away goal rule after a 2-2 draw on aggregate.

It was Cavalier’s first game since the JPL final in May and they did so without a number of their stars including Reggae Boyz Richard King, Dwayne Atkinson and Jalmaro Calvin. Speid says their absence was felt.

“We’ve lost 10 players — we lost the goalkeeper of the year, we lost the player who was the best player in the Caribbean, we lost our best centre half, so we lost a lot of players and we’re just trying to rebuild the team at this moment,” he says.

Speid, though, says he’s seen enough positives from his young team as they look to qualify for the elimination rounds with three games to go.

“I thought we were outplayed in the first half but I thought in the second half we were the ones playing much better but then we made another mistake and conceded the second goal which took the game from us,” he says. “We’re a very inexperienced team and we’re just trying to see if we can get back to the same level that we were last year. It’s going to be difficult but we’re trying.”

Cavalier are hoping to get off the mark next Thursday against Haiti’s Juventus at Sabina Park.

Meanwhile, their local rivals Mount Pleasant Football Academy are off to a better start in Group A of the tournament and Head Coach Theodore Whitmore says they’re looking to dominate the group stage.

The St Ann-based club recorded a gritty 1-0 win over 2023 champions Robinhood of Suriname at the National Stadium on Tuesday.

Despite record signing Warner Brown getting sent off 10 minutes into his debut, Mount Pleasant held on for the win thanks to captain Sue-Lae McCalla’s 35th minute header.

Whitmore says he was thoroughly impressed with his team’s efforts against the Surinamese club.

“They put up a spirited performance and I saw something that I’ve never seen before in a Mount Pleasant team and it’s the fight,” he says.

“We worked together as a unit, we fought together and you could even hear it on the pitch when we went a man down, so everybody got up and we just fought.”

Mount Pleasant failed to make it past the group stage last year but Whitmore says they’ve changed their mindset as they look to claim regional dominance.

“It’s a game by game situation,” he says. “We have completed this assignment and we now look to the next assignment. Every game we want to treat it as a final and we just want to take it one game at a time.

“We don’t want to look at the past — we want to look at where we are now and what we want to achieve. The guys know the task at hand and we just have to work together to pull it off.”

Mount Pleasant will travel to the Dominican Republic on Monday as they take on Moca FC on Wednesday.

Captain Sue-Lae McCalla (second right) celebrates with his teammates after scoring for Mount Pleasant FA in their 1-0 win over Suriname’s Robinhood in Group A of the Concacaf Caribbean Cup at the National Stadium on Tuesday. (Photo: Concacaf Media)

SPEID … we’re a very inexperienced team and we’re just trying to see if we can get back to the same level that we were last year (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

WHITMORE … every game, we want to treat it as a final and we just want to take it one game at a time (Photo: Naphtali Junior)