Head coach Orlando Da Costa will be looking to change both the mindset and playing style of a youthful Barbados Tridents side.
Speaking to members of the media during a pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s opening international friendly against Grenada, Da Costa said his first objective was to instill a winning mentality among the players.
The senior men’s team is currently in the Spice Isle where they will play three international friendlies.
“My first step is to change their mindset that we can win anywhere, so it means we must try to develop a winning mentality, this is the first step…so we will first try to develop a winning mentality and the second step is to create a game philosophy.
“They will be friendly games but for me they won’t be friendly games. For me it will be official games, you know why? Because we want to win these three games,” Da Costa maintained.
“…In football three things can happen. We can win, we can draw or we can lose…but we must come into all the games, even friendly games to win. Win, win, win must be our mindset.”
With the average age of the squad being 22, Da Costa also signaled his intention to implement a more attractive playing style based on possession.
He said he would be utilizing tactics used by some of the world’s best coaches including Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola.
Veteran midfielder Jomo Harris said Da Costa wanted the national team to play a possession-style football.
“Under the coach, he’s preaching that he wants to play possession football, that he wants to be patient and he wants us to keep the ball if we can’t go forward and keep it moving, and he wants us to score goals as well,” he said.
Harris was part of the winning Barbados team that defeated Grenada 2-0 in their last international friendly in 2017 at the Kirani James Stadium.
On that occasion, Mario Harte and Zico Edmee scored for Barbados. However, neither Harte nor Edmee are in the 23-man squad.
And while Harris acknowledged the squad was a young side, he called on Barbadians to throw their support behind the team.
“In the camp right now the guys are happy. We have a lot of youngsters who are willing to showcase and prove what they can do. We also have some experienced players and yes, we are missing some players that we had before but that is life. The vibe in the camp is good for now and we’re just ready to play and look for the win.
“I just want the Bajan public to be behind the boys. I know it’s a young squad and we just came off of four defeats. It’s a tough situation, I was here in it and I can tell you it’s tough. It’s hard sometimes but just get behind the boys, give them some support, we need it. We’re going to try our best to give you all the best football Barbados can play and to give you all some wins,” Harris said.
The Tridents will take on Grenada at Fond Playing Field tomorrow, with the other two matches to be played at Victoria Park and Cuthbert Peters Park on February 24 and 26 respectively.
