First Published By: Sugar Boyz Review
By Nathan Carr
St. Kitts and Nevis will begin their CONCACAF U-15 Boys’ Championship campaign at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida on Monday.
The competition officially started on Sunday with action from Divisions 1 and 3 (countries split into different groups based on their ranking). The young Sugar Boyz have been placed in Division 2, specifically in Group F.
They open up against Guyana on Monday before taking on St. Lucia on Tuesday and closing out the group stage against Suriname on Thursday. The final round will take place on Saturday with Barbados, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico or Belize a potential opponent for SKN depending on results this week.
The group stage promises to throw up some challenging opposition. Guyana are a well-drilled side that’s been in camp for a number of weeks and they played three practice games in Trinidad and Tobago as preparation. They’re also relatively fresh from winning the Soualiga Cup in June which was by all accounts seen as a big success in the country.
St. Lucia have reportedly been in training for around six months and will be guided by Ces Podd, a name very familiar to those who follow SKN football. Suriname, meanwhile, are somewhat of an unknown quantity at this age level.
SKN will be hoping to improve upon their last showing at U-15 level as they finished bottom of their group at the 2015 Caribbean U-15 Boys’ Championship, picking up just one point which came in their opener against Bonaire. An obvious weakness was not being able to register a goal across their three matches. Only Bonaire and St. Maarten shared the same statistic.
Although they fared better in the inaugural U-15 tournament put on by CONCACAF four years ago with two wins from four games, including an impressive 5-1 rout of St. Martin.
For those wondering, I’m yet to see any formal announcement on the squad but am in the process of trying to find out.
Of course results are always significant in football but at this age level I believe the emphasis should be less on that and more on the development of players. This will be valuable experience for the young Kittitian and Nevisian players as they look to build careers in the beautiful game.
Fixtures:
vs Guyana on Field 6, Monday 14th (11am local, 11am SKN, 4pm UK)
vs St. Lucia on Field 4, Tuesday 15th (11am local, 11am SKN, 4pm UK)
vs Suriname on Field 6, Thursday 17th (11am local, 11am SKN, 4pm UK)
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St. Kitts and Nevis U-15 squad. Picture credit: Castella Audain
