Window of opportunity

Barbados Tridents’ head coach Orlando Da Costa has not closed the door on the possibility of other players being included in the squad for the upcoming crucial Concacaf Nation’s League matches.

Following the conclusion of the team’s one-week tour of Grenada where they drew all three international friendlies, Da Costa said he hoped the national side would be given an opportunity to play at least one international friendly at the Wildey Astro Turf where they will take on Cuba on March 23 before traveling to Antigua on March 26.

Barbados currently sits in fourth position in Group A of League B.

And even though Da Costa said he was impressed with the team’s performance in Grenada, he made it clear that other players will be given additional opportunities to make the squad.

They were several surprising omissions from the 23-man squad which traveled to Grenada, including current Premier League top scorer Corey Hoyte, and former national players Hayden Holligan and Kishmar Primus.

“Of course this is a great opportunity for us to better profile our players. In the next few days we want to open the window for new players to come to our training sessions to show us their quality.

“I requested these 23 players but it doesn’t mean that for the next game we will call the same 23 players because we want to check and see other players and then after that we will think about all these four games and study Cuba and Antigua,” Da Costa said.

“Actually we already started studying Cuba and their weakness points and their strengths and in the correct time we will try to choose the players we think will be the best to win these two games.”

Following the three drawn games in Grenada, Da Costa said he had seen improvements in all areas.

In the first game last Thursday at Fond Playing Field the game ended 1-1, while the final two games both finished in 2-2 draws.

He said he was especially satisfied considering that in the Trident’s four previous Nation’s League games, they conceded seven goals and scored only once from a corner kick.

“In these three games we scored five goals from open play and also created a few more goal-scoring opportunities and conceded five goals, of which some had some doubts and penalties.

“And we also saw an evolution in the team in terms of attitude, organization and passion in wanting to win the games. The team also proved to be strong mentally because in the first game and the last game we were losing and we never gave up. We showed that the team believes in itself and believes in our ideas,” Da Costa said.

“I know that the supporters had a great expectation for our team to win, but they cannot forget that we are only working with some players for a month and for some of them it is their first time, so obviously we have a lot to improve on. We know that the road is long and hard and taking into account the time we have been here we have to be happy with our players.”

randybennett@barbadostoday.bb