The Reggae Boyz will face Costa Rica in Costa Rica tonight at 9pm Jamaican time for the return round of the 4th round of the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying series for FIFA World Cup in Russia 2018. Last Friday they drew 1-1 in Jamaica.
Costa Rica heads the group, 3 points ahead of Jamaica and Panama. Panama will face Haiti, who is at the bottom of the group with just 1 point.
With a goal in the 89th minute after many successful time-wasting tactics by Nicaragua, Simon Dawkins secured a place for Jamaica in the Semi Final round of the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying game with a final score of Jamaica 2: 0 Nicaragua. Thanks also to Darren Mattocks who scored a goal in the 13th minute, which started to get Jamaica out of debt. Mattocks displayed a valiant effort throughout the entire match. Jamaica needed 2 clear goals to win and the Reggae Boyz accomplished just that. Well done. I wish I could say the same about the commentators on FLOW Channel 100 though. They probably put Jamaica to sleep, making some miss the 2nd goal. The same thing was said about every 5 minutes in a different way, CNN style. Though debatable, for Suga, there were a lot of dull aka boring moments in the game, especially in the 2nd half where it looked for a moment like the Reggae Boyz gave up, but the commentators could have done better. They even closed the curtains on the Reggae Boyz until World Cup 2022 with about 15 minutes left in the game, which is A LOT in football time. Shame on them and extremely poor coverage.
They will now join Costa Rica, Panama and Haiti in Group B. Haiti, who was also in a knock out round, beat Grenada to advance. How does the rest of the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying 4th round look?
Group A: Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Canada
Group C: United States, Trinidad & Tobago, St.Vincent and the Grenadines, Guatemala
So the Road to Russia continues!
US Open
Serena Williams won 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 last night in a 98- minute long Quarterfinal versus her sister, Venus Williams. It seemed much longer for them and it wasn’t easy for Serena at all compared to their match up this year at Wimbledon, where it took Serena only 2 sets to win. Serena’s face looked like she was in emotional pain for the entire match. Since they are both power hitters and servers, rallies if any, only lasted about 3 or 4 hits and nobody knows Serena’s serve better than Venus.
Serena closed out the match with an ace and Venus whispered in Serena’s ear that she was very happy for her. Very sweet exchange and embrace afterwards.
Serena will move on to play the unseeded Italian, Roberta Vinci in the Semi Final this Thursday, continuing her quest to complete a Calendar Grand Slam and even Steffi Graf’s 22 Grand Slam titles in the open era.
Serena now leads Venus 16-11 in head to head Grand Slam matches and has won 7 of the last 8 meetings.
See why Venus says Serena is the ‘best ever’ here:
http://es.pn/1K7Ppem
The men’s side of the Quarterfinals was also pretty exciting yesterday with a 5 – setter from Cilic and Tsonga, where Defending Cham, Cilic prevailed 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 6-4. Marin Cilic will meet Novak Djokovic in the Semi finals.
Djokovic who continues to look good defeated Feliciano Lopez in 4 sets, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6. Do you know that he gets his sneaker company to shave down the bottom of his tennis shoes so that he can skid more. It has been noticed he gets to balls that are usually out of reach for most players, by skidding over to them during the open. Interesting stuff.
Today’s action at the Open includes:
Ladies QF:
Kvitova vs Pennetta
Halep vs Azarenka
Men’s QF:
Wawrinka vs Anderson
Federer vs Gasquet
Firstly, Suga would like to congratulate Panama on their 3rd place win vs the USA in the Gold Cup by penalties. Mexico had reached to the final in an unfair win over Panama. Players and referees were penalized, however what good does suspending players like Aguardado of Mexico do after the final aka after the fact? He should have been suspended for the final. Sadly for Jamaica, he was the one who scored the first goal against us in the first half. The second goal just minutes after the start of the second half is what could have deflated the Reggae Boyz’ hopes of winning and the third was a dagger, especially since they were a result of poor defending by Hector who cried after the game. Sorry can’t by soldier lorry Hector, but thanks for showing great effort to defend well after those goals were conceded, which should have been done from the beginning of the match. At least he did not give up or get worse. The Reggae Boyz played to the end and Mattocks scored a goal in the 80th minute for pride.
Well done Reggae Boyz. Suga is proud of you and happy to see that Jamaica is as well. All so called waggonists may not be waggonists after all, as they still applauded their efforts in the bars and at home and showed their love for the Boyz on social media.
Thanks to the Jamaican supporters who represented in Philadelphia. The Gold Cup final was played at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia and it was full! Mexicans slightly outnumbered the Jamaicans in the crowd, but for a final without USA, a full stadium was a delightful sight.
The Reggae Boyz will now continue their pursuit to reach the next World Cup and as a result of not only playing well, but showing tremendous effort, they have earned back Jamaica’s full support and respect.