Young Benna Boys Impress In CONCACAF Opener

Antigua & Barbuda impressed in their first outing of the CONCACAF Boys Under-15 Championships being held in Florida when they inflicted a 5-0 trouncing on Grenada on Sunday night.
Playing at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida the young Benna Boys had goals from Dillan Hadeed, Antyon Henry, Shaquan Telemaque, Shackwon Simon and D’andre Bishop to romp to the commanding victory.
General Secretary of the Antigua & Barbuda Football Association (ABFA) Gordon Derrick, who is currently in Florida, said he is impressed with what he has seen thus far.
“What I saw and how the team played in this game against Grenada, we definitely have a golden generation with this under-15 and I say that without any apologies because this is a very good crop all the way through. There is a goalkeeper [Jayden Martin] there who is only 14-years-old and who is about 6 feet 3 inches [tall] and he is athletic, agile and you can see he plays more than one sport,” he said.
“I think we have a really good crop to work on and I think the guys are doing very well with the way they are producing and that is Schyan Jeffers, Zico [Desmond Bleau] and Debu [Rolston Williams] with some directions,” he added.
Antigua & Barbuda has been grouped also with St Martin and Dominica in Group A of the competition.
CONCACAF, according to Derrick, has employed a new system which will see teams being grouped based on rankings. The system, he added, landed Antigua & Barbuda is what is considered a relatively easy group.
“CONCACAF in their wisdom, has divided the groups into three divisions. The top division, a second division and a third division. The top division is the ones with the Trinidad, USA, Mexico, Jamaica, Guatemala, most of the Central American teams and then the second division has some more teams and then there is the third division,” the GS said.
“Miraculously, Antigua has been placed in the third division and so we are playing the lower ranked teams and I don’t know the formula they used to determined who is in what zone,” he added.
Antigua & Barbuda is slated to play St Martin on Today at 11am before facing Dominica at 9am tomorrow.