CAVALIER CAN!

WITH just a few hours to go before Cavalier’s crucial second-leg showdown against Inter Miami in the Concacaf Champions Cup, Sporting Director Rudolph Speid remains optimistic that his team can pull off an upset at the National Stadium on Thursday in their 7 pm showdown.

Cavalier enter the match trailing 0-2, after last week’s defeat in Fort Lauderdale, but Speid believes his team has the ability to rise to the occasion and outmanoeuvre their star-studded opponents.

“It is about normalising the Inter Miami team so that our players are comfortable playing against players with such high esteem,” Speid explained.

“Jordi Alba is 35 years old but he runs up and down like he thinks he is 25. Sergio Busquets is a brilliant player — it is very difficult to take the ball off him when he has it under control. And Lionel Messi, I don’t even have to say anything,” he said.

“Then there is Luis Suárez — and he just needs a glimpse at goal to score, and they have additional players in the squad as well.”

Despite the challenges, Speid insists his players are up for the fight and ready to execute their game plan.

“They have young players who are very good too, ones that people are not watching. It is going to be a difficult game so our task is to normalise these players and get our players to believe that they can compete,” he said. “I think we did that in the first game and now we just have to do the process all over again.”

Speid highlighted that Cavalier must find a way to breach Inter Miami’s defence early in order to stay in contention for a historic comeback.

“We know what we have to do: We have to score the first goal and score it as quickly as possible. But even if we don’t get it in the first half, that doesn’t mean it’s the end,” Speid said. “We know how hard it is going to be to attack that much and keep a clean sheet.”

In spite of the result in the first leg the Jamaican club faces Thursday’s contest with confidence, after a largely impressive display against the marquee MLS outfit during which they matched their opponents at times and created several scoring opportunities themselves — hitting the post and even seeing a goal being disallowed for a marginal offside.

— Robert Bailey