Cuba delivers KO Blow to Jamaica’s Olympic Dreams
Encounter was a comedy of errors with three gifted goals
Jamaica’s dreams of having the Reggae Boyz competing at next year’s Olympic Games in Brazil were shattered after the U23 side fell 2-1 to Cuba on Friday night, when all three goals were down to errors.
Maykel Reyes’ 86th-minute strike was enough to defeat Jamaica in their Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Olympic Qualifying semi-final knockout match at the Stade Sylvio Cator in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
And the reversal made it a hat-trick of early Olympic exits for the Boyz against under-rated opponents, having last reached the final round of Qualifying for the Games in 2004.
Jerome ‘Jerry’ Waite, Jamaica’s Men’s U23 assistant coach, said: “Jamaica have never qualified for an U23 tournament.
“We had seen some of the top attacking players out of the Cuban team because they played in the Gold Cup – they are very fast and they play good football.”
Cuban took a seventh-minute lead through a bizarre goal credited to Arichel Hernandez, who was selected for the Gold Cup but was unable to acquire a US Visa.
But Jamaica keeper Nico Campbell was at fault, he made a mess of Hernandez’s header and although he appeared to have the ball he comically dragged it over the goal-line to leave the Boyz fuming at his fumble.
The opening 45 minutes was dominated by Cuba, with Andre Lewis producing Jamaica’s only shot on target that shotstopper Sandi Sanchez diverted for a corner on the brink of half-time.
After the turnaround the Boyz showed belated purpose and pace, rewarded early on with an own goal to level matters following a mazy run from Romario Williams. His cutback was flicked into the packed penalty area and resulted in the ball finding the back of the net.
The closest the Boyz came to taking the lead was when Williams picked out Michael Seaton, only for the on-rushing Sanchez to brilliantly deal with the danger in a one-on-one situation.
And Seaton was soon ruing his missed opportunity when Damion Lowe’s header fell kindly for Reyes on the edge of the penalty area. But hot-shot Reyes was not the player to not wrap up matters when presented with such a gift.
He has a habit of bagging important winners, having notched the only goal against Guatemala that sealed Cuba’s Gold Cup quarter-final berth last month, and killed off Jamaica with a thunderous drive that flew past helpless Campbell and into the top left corner.
The victory takes Cuba a step closer to the Rio Games, who face hosts Haiti in Sunday’s final, with the winner progressing to the Final Qualifying Round in October.
In contrast Jamaica will tackle St. Vincent & the Grenadines, beaten 1-0 by Haiti, in a third-place play-off on Sunday.