With his team’s first objective of qualification to the FIH Hockey5s World Cup in Oman, next January achieved, T&T senior men’s hockey team coach Darren Cowie and his charges now have their eyes set on winning the Pan American Hockey5s gold medal on Sunday.
Standing in the way of Cowie and the Akim Toussaint-skippered ‘Calypso Stickmen’ is the long-time rival and fellow unbeaten team USA, who was the first to qualify from the Pan American region after whipping Paraguay 5-1 in the first semifinal at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus Turf, Kingston, Jamaica on Friday night.
In addition to T&T, and the USA, the third winner of Sunday’s clash between Paraguay, and Jamaica will also qualify to the World Cup joining the European trio of Belgium, Holland, Poland, and Africa’s Egypt, Kenya, and Nigeria (Africa) as teams already assured of competing in the 16-nation event along with host Oman.
The remaining six qualifiers will come from Oceania and Asia where three nations each will qualify.
When the tournament served off the ‘Calypso Stickmen’ defeated Costa Rica (5-1), Guatemala (10-1), and Paraguay (12-1) to finish top of their four-team Pool B round-robin series with a maximum of nine points, before they dispatch Pool A cellar-placed team, Panama 10-1 in the quarterfinals after which they crushed Jamaica for a spot in the final.
Meanwhile, the Americans while not as potent in attack as T&T also topped their Pool A series after easing past Jamaica (4-1), Puerto Rico (3-1), and Panama (5-0) followed by a 4-0 blanking of Costa Rica in their last-eight clash to set up an interesting gold medal clash between undoubtedly the two best teams in the tournament.
Looking ahead to the match versus USA, Cowie, who has participated at a men’s Indoor World Cup as a player in the past and now will do so as a coach said what he and his staff have seen the Americans will prove a good challenge.
“We are really happy to have qualified for Oman, but we still have a match to play and our intention is to go out there and perform to our best to bring home the gold medal against the USA.’
“They (USA) have a fluid system of play and change their tactics from game to game, so its kind of difficult to really say how they will play against us, but judging from the players they have, we know that they are skillfull, but at the same time, they are not that quick, and that is something that we will be looking to take full advantage off, with the speed of our players.”
The 34-year-old Toussaint and 22-year-old Teague Marcano, who is coming off an impressive season with Southgate Hockey Club, helped the club to promotion to the England Hockey League Outdoor Premier Division as well as one of two promotion spots in the six-club hockey League Adult Super 6s Indoor Championships Men’s National Division Two also expressed their delight, but was also mindful that the job of being overall champions in Jamaica was still one win away from being completed.
Speaking on the eve of the final, Toussaint who was part of two previous national men’s teams to qualify for two FIH Indoor World Cups said, “It’s a great feeling to actually come here and play the hockey that we wanted to play and actually get to qualify for the World Cup which was part of our plan.
Looking ahead to the match against the USA, who like the ‘Calypso Stickmen’ have won all five of their matches, scoring 21 goals with four against, Toussaint said, “We had already planned for the eventuality of getting to the finals and doing really well.
“Yes, we know it’s going to be a tough game, but we will be sticking to our game plan, and doing what we want to do and how we want to do it, and probably win that game,” stated a confident Toussaint.
Sitting six goals behind teammate, England-based Teague Marcano (16) for most goals in the competition, Toussaint, a member of the Police Hockey Club said his focus in not really on the most goals, but on team success.
Toussaint added with a chuckle, “If I can score nine goals in a game, I think I will be able to beat Teague to the award, but we will see what happens in the final.
Marcano, the tournament’s leading scorer with 16 of T&T’s tournament-high goals in five matches was still a bit shocked at the team’s qualification to Oman saying, “For me, it’s still a bit surreal, like I still can’t believe that we are actually going to Oman. I’m quite excited to just go out there and see what it’s like.”
With one more match against the USA to come, Marcano said he was full of excitement, but his team will need to plan well against what is expected to be their toughest opponents.
“We still have to go back to the drawing board, go through the r tactics, watch the USA games, and then just go out and execute, and in terms of the most goals race, my focus is on us winning as a team first,” stated Marcano.
Today’s Matches
7th place: Costa Rica vs Panama, 5 pm
5th place: Guatemala vs Puerto Rico, 5.45 pm
3rd place: Jamaica vs Paraguay, 6.30 pm
Final: USA vs T&T, 7.15 pm