Wednesday, October 29 – Havana, Cuba: The unspoiled city of Havana, Cuba, was the setting for the second group of the Digicel Caribbean Championships’ Stage Two as four countries, speaking three languages, all spoke the universal language of football and played for a place in the DCC Finals.
Cuba (Spanish), Barbados (English), Suriname (Dutch) and Netherland Antilles (Dutch) came together over the course of three days to compete in Group G of the Digicel Caribbean Championships. While only two were successful in advancing to the DCC Finals, they all played great games of football which had the Cuba fans begging for more.
The Cuban comrades advance to the DCC Finals as the leaders of Group G with 7 points and a goal difference of +12, while the confident Barbadians advance with 7 points and a goal difference of +2.
Cuba Technical Director, Raul Gonzalez Triana, expressed his joy at securing a spot in the DCC Finals, “We are very proud to have performed so well in front of our home crowd. We played a terrific game in all our matches. We now have to prepare for the Finals. The Cuba team will be stronger in the Finals and we will be prepared to win!”
All smiles, Barbados Head Coach, Thomas Jordan, also expressed his team’s excitement, “We did a good job and the team did very well. We achieved exactly what we set out to do. We will go to the Finals in Jamaica with the same team and we will play to win.”
Barbados Captain, Norman Forde, went further, “We play with our hearts, with pride for our country. It is a young team and we have a lot of fight. We are not worried about the other teams as we have the spirit needed to win this tournament.”
Not to be left out, their Dutch competitors commented on their participation in the tournament. The Netherlands Antilles Coach, G. Gysberth, commented on the team’s performance, “We are really pleased with our performance in the last game against Barbados. We were on a mission to score in our last game having failed our first mission of advancing to the Finals. We will be coming back into this tournament in 2010 a much stronger team. The experience here has been invaluable.”
Suriname Captain, Cleven Roberto Wanabo, expressed his disappointment at not advancing: “We are disappointed that we did not make the finals. We weren’t playing the kind of football we should have been playing. In our last game against Cuba we were not marking the players as we should have been. But we’ve learnt from this and will be coming back in 2010 much better.”
Cuba and Barbados now join Guadeloupe, Grenada, DCC 2007 champions Haiti and DCC Finals’ host Jamaica, along with the two winners from the upcoming Group H (taking place in Trinidad), in December to speak the universal language of football and play for the coveted Digicel Caribbean Championships trophy.