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U-17 football team lauded for their efforts
7/31/2010
By Alan Harris
THE Barbados Under-17 national football team has been applauded for their string of successful results at the recently concluded Caribbean Football Union (CFU) qualifying group for the FIFA World Youth Cup in Suriname.
Barbados humbled Grenada 6-0, blanked St. Vincent and the Grenadines 3-0 and drew 2-2 with the hosts in the final game.
“They have done Barbados proud”, Ronald Jones, President of the Barbados Football Association, said. “ We have had other Under-17 teams participating in CFU and CONCACAF tournaments before with a high level of success but the format of this particular tournament has demonstrated that this particular Under-17 team has the potential to continue to grow as a national team”.
Led by prolific strikers Jabarry Chandler and Diquan Adamson, Barbados scored ten goals from their three matches while only conceding two.
“The first game was 6-0, the second game was 2-0 and they drew the third game against Suriname 2-2 after having been down at the end of the 38th minute 2-0. What that says to me is that at half-time, after listening to the words of their coaches and managers, that they knew they could not be defeated otherwise Suriname would have been the team advancing to the next round. For drawing the game against Suriname with I am told, four thousand spectators present, I think we should record how proud we are in the BFA of the efforts of these young players”.
A keen supporter of the under-17 team, Jones said he was impressed with the prowess of Chandler and Adamson. Chandler ended the competition with five of Barbados’ ten goals – he scored the 67th minute equaliser against Suriname and scored 2 goals apiece against both St. Vincent & the Grenadines and Grenada. Adamson, who had a training stint with England’s Sunderland FC earlier in the year, scored one against St. Vincent and two against Grenada.
“Obviously there are names which stand out like Jabarry Chandler, a young man who hails from Christ Church and Diquan Adamson, a player who had an opportunity to play at Sunderland FC. This national Under-17 team has been in training for sometime and our presence of resources, though be it scarce, would have allowed them to continue their training throughout the summer”.
The Barbados team will now advance to next month’s second round of qualifying in Jamaica, but Jones, who also wears the hat of Minister of Education, disclosed that due to logistical issues, the date of the trip had been pushed back slightly.
“This team now advances to the next round. They were supposed to play around the August 18th but we have just received correspondence that this has been postponed for a bit. It was put on hold to give CONCACAF an opportunity to look at the Zones for the competition. There may be readjustments to the zones and possible readjustments to the venues. We should have been playing in Jamaica but there may be some minor readjustments and therefor we await those adjustments from CFU/CONCACAF to see where the team will be playing. Nevertheless, we are hoping that this exercise comes before the end of August, because we would want those Under-17 players to be ready to return to school come September”.
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