Barbados Head Coach Reflects on Defeat Against Dominican Republic in CONCACAF Nations League

Barbados Head Coach Orlando da Costa said Friday night’s 5-0 defeat at the hands of Dominican Republic in their third CONCACAF Nations League match-League B, Group B campaign was a humbling experience and reflective of the gulf in quality between the two sides.

Speaking after the match, da Costa said: “We must be humble enough to recognise that the opponents dominated the game and they belong to another level, to be honest. They deserve to play in League A because all of their players play overseas at a high level.

“The Dominican Republic league is a professional league and you saw that on the pitch; their players had more intensity, better fitness and conditioning. My team did everything to score goals and defend but you know when you play a better team, you must have the humility to say congratulations to the other side.”

da Costa lamented the fact that his side continued to concede early goals.

“Our team showed a lot of commitment to try and stay organised, but we have one detail that I cannot control. We always concede goals in the early minutes of games. When you have one team who doesn’t have a lot of quality but they do have commitment and organisation, when they make small mistakes against opposition with better quality, the opposition usually take advantage.”

Barbados have now conceded in the sixth minute against Monsterrat, in the 11th against Nicaragua and in the seventh minute versus Dominican Republic Friday.

Defender Krystian Pearce hit back at claims that there was a lack of desire in the camp, instead putting the losses down to a lack of confidence and a subsequent failure to execute skills.

“One thing I can say is that I don’t think we lack desire. I think everyone is trying their hardest, I think it is more a lack of confidence,” Pearce said.

“Like coach said, we are conceding a lot of goals early and if you concede early, sometimes it can affect the boys just like scoring early can give everyone a lift. You saw when we equalised early against Montserrat that it gave us a lot of confidence to go again so we just have to take confidence from knowing that we have quality and we can go out and score goals.”

He added: “We just have to keep the backdoor closed for longer periods because we can’t keep conceding early goals, especially goals where for example in the second goal, it’s our free kick and we conceded from it. That can’t happen so things like that you have to get back to the training ground and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Barbados sit bottom of their group having lost all three matches and conceding 13, the most in the competition so far. Up next for them is the reverse fixture against Dominican Republic at the Estadio Complejo Deportivo Moca 86. (JC)