as Bahamas pull off 1-0 upset win


PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti - Jamaica's Under-23 coach, Wendell Downswell, seems to be in shock after his team's 1-0 loss against the Bahamas last night. (Photo: Paul Reid)

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti - Jamaica's chances of advancing to the football tournament at the Beijing Olympics took a nosedive last night when they were beaten 1-0 by minnows Bahamas in the Caribbean Football Union second-round qualifying match at the Stade Sylvio Cator here.

Lesly St Fleur's 84th-minute goal shocked the Jamaicans, who were expected to roll over the Bahamas and set up a winner-take-all finale against the hosts in tomorrow's game at the same venue.

Jamaica must now beat Haiti by an improbable eight goals on Saturday if they are to take the sole qualifying spot and advance to the next round.

Haiti and the Bahamas are tied on three points at the top of the tables, but the Haitians can lose to Jamaica on Saturday and still advance after their 6-0 mauling of the Bahamas in the first game on Tuesday.


PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti - Jamaican striker, Luton Shelton (foreground), gets by a Bahamian defender during their second-round Olympic qualifying match at the Stade Sylvio Cator yesterday. Bahamas won 1-0. (Photo: Paul Reid)

Haiti have a healthy goal difference of six, while the Bahamas have minus five. Jamaica are yet to get a point.
Jamaica, led by English-based striker Luton Shelton, Eric Vernon and Rafe Wolfe of Belgian team Whitestar, peppered the Bahamian team, especially in the first half, but outstanding goalkeeping from Dwayne Whylly and lack of focus in front of goal denied the Jamaicans.

Whylly was outstanding as he pulled off save after save and even when he was beaten, the Jamaicans conspired to hit the woodwork or shoot wide.

After being put on the backfoot for the first 30 minutes, the Bahamians, urged on by a fair-sized crowd in the 18,000 seat capacity facility, grew with confidence the longer the Jamaicans failed to score and then got their biggest win under newly-appointed Brazilian coach, Neider dos Santos.

The Haitian crowd, which had started chanting 'Bahamas, Bahamas' mid-way the second half, went into wild cheering and dancing when St Fleur scored with six minutes to go.
Jamaica's coach Wendell Downswell, was a very disappointed man when he spoke to the Observer.

'I'm extremely disappointed,' he said. 'I had high hopes for this team and believe you me, if someone told me we would play for 90 minutes and not score, I would not believe.'
Downswell, who led the Under-20 team to a silver medal at the Pan-Am Games recently, said 'we created anything between 13 and 14 easy scoring chances, but our concentration level and composure in front of goal let us down. We have no one to blame but ourselves.'

According to Downswell, 'All we needed to do was slot the balls home and we are home and dry; we just lost our focus.'
He said at half-time the coaching staff told the team, 'concentrate on the details... we told them they were in control of the game, but they came out and did the same thing.'

He conceded that some amount of over-confidence and complacency could have contributed to the defeat.
'We did not play efficiently as a team but created enough chances to score at least two goals,' he said.
He warned, however, that the team was not giving up. 'We're coming out fighting as our pride is at stake and we're coming out to fight for it.'

Dos Santos, who was appointed less than six months ago to guide the Bahamas team, praised his young team, especially Whylly, whom he said is the best goalkeeper in the tournament.

After the big defeat on Tuesday, which he attributed to the bad conditions and bigger Haitians, he told the Observer that
'Today we knew Jamaica would be the favourites. Jamaica have more experience even though our players are average age 18, but they did a fantastic job today.'

After soaking up some pressure, he said, his team started to 'loosen up and we started playing some good football and we created some danger' for the Jamaicans. 'We deserved to win, football is scoring goals so we scored one and Jamaica scored nil.'

He said the change of fortune for the Bahamas was due to the better conditions under which the game was played yesterday as he said his team was 'light, Haiti is bigger and we adapted very well today.'

Jamaica completely dominated the first half where they created chance after chance and had the Bahamians scrambling to keep them at bay.

It appeared Jamaica would run out easy winners, surpassing the six goals scored by Haiti on Tuesday, but it turned out instead to be an exercise in frustration as despite beating the defence on numerous occasions, they just could not get the ball into the net.

On the other hand, goalkeeper Dwayne Kerr made one save in the first half, in the 39th minute, and three more in the second.

The Bahamians grew in confidence and after appearing to be conceding a draw, they hit on a counter-attack. St Fleur dribbled down the right, appeared to stumble when he was tackled just inside the penalty box but regained his footing, drifted right and shot past Kerr at the near post, off the inside of the far post and into the back of the net.

Jamaica had one last chance of at least coming away with a draw in the 88th minute when Shelton finally got rid of his marker, Justin Sealy, dribbled from inside the Jamaican half, went to the right and his cross beat the goalkeeper and the defence. But Vernon, who was at the far post, lost his footing and fell before the ball got to him.

Teams

Bahamas - Dwayne Whylly, Happy Hall, Lesly St Fleur, Shemord Thompson, Cameron Hepple, Justin Sealy, Alexander Wallace-Vanderpool, Bernard Rahming, Kyle Williams, LamarCancino (Denair Mitchell 46th), Demont Mitchell.

Subs not used: C Sheehan, R Moseley, D Darville, S Clarke, C Smith

Booked: none

Jamaica - Duwayne Kerr, Rudolph Austin, Keneil Moodie, Obrian Woodbine (Xavian Virgo-65th), Troy Smith, Ricardo Cousins, Nicholoy Findlayson, Eric Vernon, Luton Shelton, Rafe Wolfe (Bryan Bayliss-58th), Kemmar Daley (Donovan Davis-53rd)

Subs not used: A Brown, A Reid, N Bailey, D Miller

Booked: Findlayson-78th

Referee: Walter Quesada (Costa Rica)

Assistants: Leonel Leal (Costa Rica), Rodolfo Gonzalez (Guatemala)

Fourth Official: Roberto Moreno, Panama

Commissary: Boris Punch, Trinidad & Tobago

By PAUL REID

Copyright© 2000-2001 Jamaica Observer.

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