March 24, 2023
This week-end has seen the resumption of Concacaf’s Nations League competition. In League C, Group C, St Lucia had already secured promotion to League B after wins over Anguilla and Dominica as their two rivals had played out two draws against each other.
The 0-0 draw between Anguilla and Dominica in June 2022 was featured by these diaries, and the return fixture finished 1-1 with a historic equalizing goal from Jonathan Guishard earning an away point for Anguilla.
https://fatbearssportingdiaries.blogspot.com/2022/06/anguilla-0-0-dominica-att-500-estimate.html
For today’s match, despite the two draws with Dominica, Anguilla remained 210th in FIFA’s world ranking, with only San Marino below them. St Lucia were in 172nd position.
Since beating Anguilla, St Lucia had played two high profile home matches against San Marino, which ended in a 1-1 draw and 1-0 victory. Two friendlies were played in Grenada at the beginning in March, with one win a piece. In comparison, Anguilla had played a 2-2 draw at home to St Martin.
The coach of St Lucia is Stern John, ex-Trinidad & Tobago, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and few others, who previously had a spell in charge of Anguilla. Perhaps their most well-known player in today’s line up was Charlton Athletic defender Terell Thomas, whilst left-back Kurt Frederick holds the record for the most caps for St Lucia on 48. Keeper Vino Barclett, right-back Alvinus Myers, centre-back Melvin Doxilly and midfielders Lestor Joseph and Jevick Macfarlane all play their club football in Jamaica. Frederick and attacking midfielder Gregson President play for clubs in Antigua. President can presumably be relied upon to take charge on the field !
Anguilla’s line-up featured three players who ply their trade in the lower leagues in England, with centre-back Luke Paris at step 4 side Uxbridge, whilst midfielder Kian Duncan plays in the same division for Binfield. Calvin Morgan plays for Chalvey Sports, who I think are a step 7 side. The rest of the squad play for sides in Anguilla.
Their side today showed 5 changes from the side that started against Dominica, with perhaps the most surprising change being 19 year-old goal-keeper Danniell Bailey, who had looked so good in the three previous games National League games being dropped for 39 year old Jelanie Lawrence, who had 1 cap. One interesting player to look out for was 32 year old attacker Aedan Scipio ( 3 caps ), who with hair flowing well below his waist looked more like someone likely to be playing bass guitar with Omari Banks at Da Vida or one of the live music venues in Sandy Ground !
The temperature at the 15.00 local kick-off time was around 26 degrees and the weather was sunny. Entrance to the game was $10 for adults and $5 for children. Apparently, the local school was closing at 2pm on the day to enable as many people as possible to attend the game. With a population of approximately 16,000, roughly 5% of the island were in attendance today !
The match was shown live on both the Concacaf website and YouTube channel. Bet365.com also streamed the game, and made St Lucia 30/100 favourite, with Anguilla long-shot outsiders at 13/2 and the draw at 15/4. St Lucia were in an all-blue kit, whilst Anguilla were in stylish white shirts with blue shorts.
A large merchandise store building was clearly visible inside the ground, an indication to the increased marketing efforts by the Anguilla FA, and the food and drink kiosk was doing good business. As before, a number of people were watching the game from the cricket stadium’s main stand, and people were still trickling into the ground 15 minutes after kick-off.
St Lucia immediately put the home side under pressure as Jevick Macfarlane was put clear down the right and an overhead kick was completely missed by Andrus Remy from the cross. St Lucia regained possession and after Anguilla keeper Lawrence flapped at the cross, Gregson President’s drive was straight at the keeper, who held the effort.
Shortly after, Frederick’s probing cross-field ball looked to have played in Macfarlane but a crunching tackle by Kion Lee fairly won the ball and left the St Lucian winger on a heap on the floor. The officials saw nothing wrong with the challenge and the battle between the Anguillan left-back and Macfarlane was to be a feature of the first half.
After 7 minutes, a long ball from the St Lucia half saw Lawrence race out of his area, and although his contact wasn’t clean, the danger was averted. Fleming and Carty then both combined to flatten Richard.
With 12 minutes played Remy was put clear inside the Anguilla area but his attempted pass was poor, and put out for a corner. Frederick’s left-footed delivery was good, but Lawrence was able to claim at the second attempt.
Anguilla finally managed to get out of their half, and a nice turn and pass from Scipio gave Morgan some space to ran towards the St Lucian area, but a strong, but fair challenge sent him to the turf.
After their impressive beginning, St Lucia finally were rewarded with the opening goal in the 18th minute. President’s pass played in Macfarlane overlapping down the right, and his pin-point cross sailed over the stranded keeper for Remy to have the simple task to head into the open net from 6 yards.
Anguilla responded with their first shot on target, when Guishard’s header found Carty, but the winger’s effort from a tight angle lacked power and was easily saved by keeper Barclett.
Lee then fouled Macfarlane as the lively right-sided midfielder was looking to break-down the right channel, and Frederick’s free-kick towards the near-post wasn’t gathered by Lawrence, and Duncan and Fleming combined to clear.
St Lucia were repeatedly being caught off-side in their eagerness to attack, and the game’s first comedy moment occurred just after the half-hour mark. Morgan made a wild attempt to play the ball near the touchline with Macfarlane in close attendance. He missed both the ball and the player, but the St Lucian dramatically fell to floor holding his chest. Unfortunately for him, it was right in front of the linesman, who kept his flag by his side, and the game continued.
Another probing cross-field pass by Frederick again put Macfarland in space inside the home side’s area, but Lawrence sprinted towards him to narrow the angle, and the Anguillan defence were eventually able to clear.
Anguilla then looked to have created something promising as Duncan’s neat pass appeared to have put Scipio clear, but this time it was Anguilla’s turned to see the flag raised for offside.
St Lucia had a chance to double their lead in the 38th minute. An optimistic 35 yard shot instead found Remy, who laid the ball off to Richard, but the shot from the edge of the area went a foot or so wide of the post.
Lawrence’s impression of a dodgy keeper continued as he dropped a straight forward catch, but Macfarlane could only return the ball straight back to the grateful keeper.
With added on time being played, Anguilla lost possession midway inside their half and Macfarlane set-up Henville, but the effort on goal was weak and deflected off for a corner. Myers’ in-swinging delivery was flicked on at the near post by Thomas to leave the unmarked President the simple task of sliding in at the back post to put the ball into the net. The linesman raised his flag for off-side, but there was an Anguillan defender on the near post, so President was clearly on-side, and after a brief consultation with the linesman, the referee awarded the goal.
At half-time St Lucia’s 2-0 lead was fully deserved as they had dominated the game so far, and Anguilla had rarely threatened.
St Lucia continued to dominate in the early stages of the second half, Doxilly put his header from a corner into the side netting, then Richard ran onto a long pass from Frederick but after getting into the penalty area could only shoot tamely left-footed for Lawrence to dive and push the ball away and then gather at the second attempt. Shortly after Richard found Macfarlane on the right wing but the cross was too high for Henville ghosting in at the back post.
The home side made a double substitution on 58 minutes and slowly started to get some possession, although the visitors’ goal didn’t looked like being threatened. St Lucia’s Richard went on a mazy run from half-way but Anguilla centre-back Paris took the ball off his toes as he was looking to shoot.
As both sides were looking to make substitutions, a punch-up started for no obvious reason, but eventually the referee restored order. Anguilla had a free-kick near the half-way line but Paris’ ball into the mixer was well claimed by Barclett, who appeared to have been injured in the process.
St Lucia continued to be repeatedly caught off-side but substitute Stanislaus made a strong run down the right wing only for Richard to put the cross well wide from 8 yards.
Unexpectedly, Anguilla pulled a goal back with 18 minutes remaining. Jalen Smien skipped past Doxilly to reach the edge of the area and then was able to turn the ball left-footed across the face of the penalty area. The ball reached Lamar Carpenter who took one touch before going for goal. The ball hit the foot of defender Thomas, but the contact wasn’t enough to prevent the goal nestling in the corner of the goal, and the home crowd roared in delight. Up to that point Anguilla hadn’t looked like getting back into the game and St Lucia looked to be coasting to a comfortable victory.
St Lucia attempted to strike back immediately, but Paris was alert to block a goal-bound effort from Baptiste after a reverse pass had created the opportunity.
Anguilla now started to get a fair share of the possession and the momentum began to shift. With two minutes of regular time remaining, Scipio was bundled over in a promising position on the right but unfortuantely for the home side, Smiens’ free-kick didn’t beat the first defender, but it was put out for a corner.
The corner was cleared but the ball was lobbed high back into the St Lucia area, where Barclett again made an important catch. He then spoilt his good work by collapsing to the ground in agony, although the TV replays showed no-one had touched him. It appeared to be a pretty poor attempt at time-wasting, and one day some-one will be seriously injured but ignored after crying wolf once too often.
Anguilla continued to have possession but struggled to get the ball into the final third. After trying to over-play they lost possession, and again a cross from the left slipped through the hands of Lawrence, but Paris was on hand to head off the line.
The final whistle blew shortly after to give St Lucia a deserved victory and to take them to three wins out of three in the group. Anguilla will be heartened by another improved performance, and again running higher ranked St Lucia to a close and competitive score. Their weak link today was obviously the goal-keeper, and given the decent performances of Bailey in their previous Nations League matches, the selection of Lawrence seemed particularly odd.
Highlights : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL-j1x02jDM
Anguilla : Lawrence – Fleming, Paris, Bryan ( Brooks ), Lee – Carty ( Jared Smiens ), Hughes, Duncan, Morgan ( Jalen Smiens ) – Scipio, Guishard ( Carpenter )
St Lucia : Barclett – Myers, Thomas, Doxilly, Frederick – Macfarlane, Joseph, Henville ( Similien ), President ( St Prix ) – Remy ( Baptiste ), Richard ( Sandiford )
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