ST ELIZABETH, Jamaica – Glenmuir High School will be going after title number seven in the ISSA/WATA Ben Francis Cup final today when they take on reigning champions Edwin Allen High, led by their super confident captain, Zakari Messam, who believes that the title is theirs for the taking.
Glenmuir High made it through to today’s final on the back of a brace from forward David Reid, as well as a man-of-the-match performance from their skipper in midfield, against a very tame York Castle High.
The semifinal against York Castle proved to be a lot easier than anticipated as the St Ann-based school failed to really threaten the Clarendonians for much of the contest.
In fact, had Glenmuir been more efficient in front of goal, they could have won by a much larger margin, Messam noted.
“We got some chances very early in the game, but we didn’t finish them. Fortunately, we got one and we just kept that going into half time,” he said.
The captain said that with the game under control at the half-time break, they were instructed by coach, Andrew Peart, to keep on going.
“The coach’s instructions were to go out there and play our game. He always says to play our game and we went out there and did that, we played our game and got another goal,” Messam said.
Messam has never been in a championship game before and in this his final year of high school is determined to be able to put a winner’s medal on his mantle piece at home.
“This will be my first schoolboy football final and I am most definitely excited and ready,” he said.
Glenmuir was one of the teams fancied to go all the way in the DaCosta Cup, but after crashing out at the quarter final stage, they refocused on chasing the only other silverware that was left on the table.
“It was unfortunate what happened in the DaCosta Cup, but we just went back to the training ground, polished off and focused on the objective ahead,” he said.
Today, they will face Edwin Allen High, who won the title earlier this year for the very first time and who will be determined to keep hold of the title themselves.
“We will go, play our game as usual, enjoy ourselves and we will most definitely come out victorious,” Messam boasted.
The Ben Francis Cup final will begin at 2:15pm at STETHS and will be followed by the DaCosta Cup final at 4:30pm.
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