By Neto Baptiste
Coach of the Sandals/Inet Grenades FC and former national striker, Derrick Edwards, is hoping to strengthen weak areas ahead of the team’s opener against the Dominican Republic’s Cibao FC in the Concacaf Caribbean Cup slated for August 28.
“I think we need to tighten up a bit in the middle. We have to be a little bit more organized and the defence, they played well so it was a total team effort, but in that midfield area, there is where you win games and lose games. I basically told the guys in that second-to-last game we played [against Dublanc FC] that if we can’t win the middle then we can’t win this game,” he said.
Grenades qualified for the Caribbean Cup after finishing as runner-ups in the just-ended Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Club Shield held in Curacao. The Antigua and Barbuda team was beaten one-nil in the final by Jamaica’s Arnett Gardens FC who also qualified for the Concacaf tournament.
Edwards hinted as well that Grenades will be going on a recruitment drive as they seek to beef-up their squad for the much tougher Caribbean Cup.
“We are going to lose one of our top defenders in Jordan Britto from Trinidad, because he played his last game with us on Sunday and he is going to move on to Trinidad, so we have to fill that void. This kind of competition, we have to get our best players because we’re coming up against professional teams now and we are an amateur team, so we have to try and get the best of the players in order to compete in that competition. It’s a lot of work, and I think the players understand now and they are up to the challenge,” the coach said.
Grenades will contest Group B alongside Cibao FC, Moca FC out of Dominica, Ouanaminthe FC out of Haiti and AC Port of Spain out of Trinidad, while Arnett Gardens will play in Group A.
Edwards however highlighted that Grenades will be forced to play their opening home game away to Cibao FC.
“Our first game was supposed to be in Antigua and it’s sad that we have to play it away because we don’t have the facilities to accommodate our home games, so we have to play our first game in Santo Domingo against Cibao FC. The Turf is not suitable because the one that they have has no lights, so we can’t use it because of television rights and matches are played at 6:00 pm and 8:00 pm so we have to shift out game to Santo Domingo,” he said.
This year’s Concacaf Caribbean Cup is the second edition of the regional cup competition, which serves as a qualifier for the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup and crowns the Caribbean’s club champion. The tournament will be played between August and December.
