Defending champions Jamaica and St. Lucia go through to Digicel Caribbean Cup semifinals
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Defending champions, Jamaica and St. Lucia, went through to the Digicel Caribbean Cup semi-finals on Sunday, when they beat Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados, respectively.
As Digicel banners fluttered in the stands of the Jefferson High School ground in Brooklyn, New York, hundreds of football fans witnessed Jamaica trounce Trinidad & Tobago to a 3-0 win, and St. Lucia upset Barbados 2-1, in the play-offs’ double header.
Jamaica and St. Lucia weren’t the only winners on Sunday. Digicel was on hand to make sure that a fun day of football was had by all with ‘Digicel Kick for Cards’ competitions taking place during half time of each match. Two lucky customers, Alvinus Estephan from St. Lucia, and Eduardo Hemmings from Costa Rica, took part in the competition and walked away with free Digicel calling cards to call their friends and family back home. After winning the ‘Digicel Kick for Cards’ competition, Estephan said he would definitely be back next week to take part in more Digicel competitions.
The Digicel Girls were kept busy during both matches as they invited customers to visit the Digicel booth where they could top up their friends and family back home in the Caribbean and be in with a chance to win free Digicel calling cards at next week’s half-time game.
During the first match of the day, Jamaica demonstrated its dominance in the 17 year old Digicel Caribbean Cup in what was described as a “cake walk” over Trinidad & Tobago.
Damion Williams scored twice for the New York Reggae Boyz, and Ryan Reid converted the other goal.
Jamaica registered all three goals in the first half, with Williams initiating the campaign with a header to the left of Trinidad & Tobago goal keeper, Akil Mitchell, in the 18th minute.
Five minutes later, Reid blasted a right footer 10 yards outside the penalty box which eluded Mitchell.
Then Williams handed Jamaica its third goal in the 35th minute by touching past Mitchell.
Trinidad desperately tried to find the back of the Jamaican net in the second half, but the four-time Digicel Caribbean Cup New York champions held Trinidad at bay and maintained its 3-0 margin.
An unusually large St. Lucian crowd witnessed their “home boys” upset Barbados, winners of the preliminary round’s East Zone, in Sunday’s final match.
Levi Gilbert (25th minute) and Nyhime Gilbert (65th minute) converted for St. Lucia, while Barbados’ lone goal came in the 27th minute off the boots of Jeffrey Williams, 10 yards outside the penalty box.
“I’m just shocked – lost for words,” said Alvin Brathwaite, Barbados’ head coach.
His opposite number, Ernest James, said it was important that St. Lucia win the match: “We had to show them that we were not pushovers,” he said. “Our goal is to win the Digicel Caribbean Cup.”
Football fans at the match were also invited to learn about the different products and services that Digicel has to offer the Diaspora community such as; online top up – where customers can log on to any Digicel website and top up or send minutes to people back home; retail top up – where customers can go into any one of over 100,000 retail stores in the UK, Canada, the Caribbean and the USA and purchase Digicel top up or send Digicel minutes to friends and relatives in their home country; and Digicel calling cards – where customers calling friends and family in Haiti and Jamaica can call home at competitive rates using minutes stored on the calling card.
The Digicel Caribbean Cup continues this Sunday, August 23rd, with the second round play-offs featuring Antigua & Barbuda taking on five-time champions St. Vincent & the Grenadines in the first game, with Grenada challenging last season’s runners-up St. Kitts & Nevis in the final match.
