By Neto Baptiste
Newly appointed assistant coach for the Antigua and Barbuda senior men’s football team George “Sowa” Dublin said that although having friendly matches ahead of the next round in the Concacaf Nations League slated for later this month could help to better prepare the team, he is cognisant that it may not be ideal at this time.
“A warm up match can’t hurt. It would be ideal to actually get a couple of warm up matches. Unfortunately, we are still in the middle of our league and [matches] may put a [pause] to the league. I guess we’re already behind time regarding the whole process of the league in terms of the time we started and so on but we are looking at getting games. Hopefully, we can get two games in, but the time is kind of short though. We have just a little over two weeks, give and take, to prepare this team, so I think that because most of our players are in competitive football at the minute, hopefully we could get a good jell of players together,” he said.
Dublin, a former national defender was at the time, speaking on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show. He went on to reveal that he will be working on a number of areas ahead of the arrival of England-based head coach, Mikele Leigertwood.
“Personally, I want to get how we want to defend as a team, our starting line to pressure, our drop off line, who picks up which player and how we move according to the ball and relative things like that. In terms of attack, we have some very good players who are scoring goals in the league, so we don’t want to take away from the things they have been doing that have made them top marksmen; we just want to put a little foundation,” the coach said.
The defender, who still turns out for the Greenbay Hoppers FC in the Antigua and Barbuda Football Association’s Premier Division, said he seized the opportunity after leaving the head coach role with the Montserrat Football Association.
“I applied earlier in the year for a job within the youth developmental programme and also if needs be, I could be a part of the senior programme. They got back to me some time later, this year, and told me they would like me to continue for the last two games coming up in the Nations League as an assistant for Mikele Leigertwood,” Dublin said.
Antigua and Barbuda Benna Boys will host Guadeloupe on 23 March in their League B, Group A clash before facing Barbados three days later on 26 March. Both matches are scheduled for 3pm at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.