The Sugar Boys are off to a flying start in this year’s CONCACAF Nations League, League B, Group C, with two wins from two matches. Tiquanny Williams has been the standout performer so far, scoring all five of the Sugar Boys’ goals in their opening two games. So, what has been behind this impressive start? We sat down with St. Kitts & Nevis Senior Men’s National Team Head Coach, Marcelo Serrano, and Assistant Coach, Diego Robert Pishinin Mendes, to hear about the work being done behind the scenes to prepare the Sugar Boys for battle.
It started with FIFA series in Indonesia; we came back with the first FIFA medal to the nation, to the country. And the players, they fought in Indonesia well. And then we came from that competition, talking, who are the players that did well, who are the players that still need development, he explained. And so, prior to this first FIFA window, that we just played Bonaire, 2-1, we won. And Grenada, that we just beat 3-0. We created a database of players that did well in Indonesia and a database of players that were not in Indonesia.
He lauded his assistant coach Diego, who is charge of the recruiting and keeping a database of the team. “We have a database of 250 plus players, local and overseas. And we just want to be more organized,” he disclosed.
Assistant Coach Diego also explained how he scouts players for possible selection to the national team. “We have a couple of things that we need to always look for. Which league are you playing? What is the level of the league you’re playing? Are you playing games like 45 minutes, 90 minutes? How many games in the season you have been playing? Did you get injured in the past couple months? Did you have any surgery? All of those things that we need to be tracking to see when we get to the FIFA date, so we can have the best squad as possible and they’re more prepared,” the assistant coach outlined.
Coach Serrano is appealing to fans to continue rallying behind the team. “My message to St. Kitts and Nevis is that you guys taught me to love you. Can we stop the segregation between us and can we do aggregation? Can we bring love to football? I know here it’s a community-based country. You have the communities, politics are in the communities, but football should not be separated,” he said in an impassioned plea to the fans.
If one thing that everybody knows (the) World Cup unites people; it’s football. So, our job over here is can we be united in politics to help the federation and football? Can we be united as the fans? Can we be united inside the federation so we can grow? So this is the vision that we have and hope one day when we leave here, we can leave this legacy of unity.
Meanwhile, captain Romain Sawyers also thanked the fans for their support and says the team is looking forward to the upcoming matches in Trinidad and Tobago.
“I think it’s good. I think you can see it in our performance. Our confidence is high. We’ve had a management team that’s put a plan towards us. I think we executed it a bit slower the first game, but the second game was really good. We’re scoring goals, which is always good, creating chances.
And I think we showed good reaction to the adversity of conceding first against Bonaire. And now we’ve got to get the confidence into the next two games,” he said. The Sugar Boys face Cuba on Friday, October 2nd at 5pm at the Hazley Crawford Stadium in Porto, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
They return to the same venue on Monday, October 5th, also at 5pm for the second encounter. Saint Kitts and Nevis currently sit second in Group C of League B, level on points with the group leader Cuba and separated only by goal difference.
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