By Neto Baptiste
Coach of the national under-20 football team and former national striker Kerry Skepple has commended the country’s young squad for their performance against Suriname, despite a narrow 3-2 loss in Group B of the ongoing Concacaf Under-20 Qualifiers at the Antigua and Barbuda Football Association (ABFA) Technical Centre on Sunday.
The loss was Antigua and Barbuda’s first in two matches after a dominant opening 4-0 win over Guyana last Friday at the same venue.
Skepple said the team did extremely well to come from two goals down to put pressure on the Suriname players.
“From that first goal that Eroy scored you could see the movements, the passing was very accurate, quick and put Suriname on the back foot and we got the goal we wanted. So, had we had a better start to that game it could have been a different result but at the end of the day I have to give the guys real credit for showing that fight coming down to the end,” he said.
Suriname had strikes from Robinio Pinas who struck in minute 16 and Djaier Cleon Prijor who netted from the penalty spot in minute 45 as they went into the interval as 2-0 leaders.
Antigua and Barbuda pulled a goal back in minute 69 via an Eroy Gonsalves strike but Jereno van Gom widened Suriname’s lead once more when he struck in the 89th minute to make it 3-1. Defender Davian Gumbs pulled the young Benna Boys within one when he struck in added time, but the home team could not find the equaliser before regulation.
Skepple said the team started slow and allowed the opponents to get the upper hand.
“We have a very detailed plan as to how we were going to approach the Suriname game and we just started real flat and we weren’t reacting quickly enough to get to where we needed to be to stop them from playing the way they wanted to play and that resulted into us giving up a fairly easy goal,” he said.
Antigua and Barbuda, due to face Turks & Caicos at 3pm on Tuesday, lay second on the standings with three points from two showings, one point adrift leaders El Salvador who have four points from two showings. Suriname are third with three points from one match.
