Speid bemoans U-17 final scheduling

The Alliance/MoneyGram KSAFA U-17 football competition will come to a conclusion today at The University of the West Indies Mona/JFF Captain Burrell Centre of Excellence football field. Cavalier FC will face off against Real Mona in the final and Cavalier coach Rudolph Speid said he is unsure of his team’s chances going into the final.

Cavalier will no doubt be going into this matchup as the underdogs after Speid confirmed that the entire regular squad that made it to the final would not be available to play tomorrow.

“The players will be going to Sweden to participate in the Gothia Cup. It’s an invitational tournament for 12 premier teams in Sweden and 12 teams from across the globe,” Speid said. “You have to be invited, and we’re going to play against teams from England, Brazil, Mexico, and other European nations.”

Cavalier played in the Gothia Cup last year as well, where they finished second in the B playoffs of the boys’ U-17 competition.

Speid said that as a result, Cavalier would be fielding a new squad of much younger players to participate in the final, and he was unsure of the team’s readiness to date.

“No one can lose 16 players and still maintain the same squad,” Speid said. “It’s two different squads. What we have is a group of highly talented 15- and 14-year-olds that won a trophy in Cayman a few months ago. So really, we’re using our second-string team to play Real Mona.”

RESCHEDULING DENIED

Due to the playing of the final clashing with their trip to Sweden, Cavalier had requested a rescheduling to allow for their team to recover in time but was denied by the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association.

“What had happened is that they played the U-17 competition in the wrong month,” Speid said. “This is not what they told us originally. It should have been played in April to June, basically. They have carried it over to July, and now there is a scheduling conflict. They don’t think that it’s important enough to postpone the game for us to go the Gothia Cup and come back.”

Regardless, he insisted that his team would be going for the win in tomorrow’s finals.

“We got into the final, and we will leave it up the youngsters,” Speid said. “We don’t care what they want to do, and we know what we want to do.”

– Gregory Bryce