Millington, Beaton push Guyana into semi-finals
THE pair of Devon Millington and Kevin Beaton have proved to be by far the most lethal players in the tournament this year, as the two strikers each netted a double to help Guyana demolish Trinidad and Tobago 5-0 last Sunday, to advance to the semi-finals of this year’s Digicel Caribbean Cup tournament in New York. It was a raining day in the Empire State, but the heavy showers did not stop scores of Guyanese from making their way to the Thomas Jefferson High School playfield in Brooklyn, to witness football at its best.
The first 30 minutes of the game belonged to Guyana as the Trinidadians were kept at bay by the eventual winners’ rock-solid defence as former Guyana national captain Howard and Abassi McPherson lived up to their reputation as two of the best defenders.
Millington, again, setting all of Guyana’s chances on goal, was perfect in his timing and found Nigel ‘Power’ Codrington at the top of the 18 yards alone, but the forward’s powerful right-footed shot sailed high over the crossbar.
Codrington was again fed, this time by Beaton who broke down the right wing and squared a beautiful ball in the ‘box’ but he (Codrington) put too much power on the shot that went wide of the goal.
But, Millington gave Guyana the go-ahead goal 15 minutes in, when he collected a pass from the midfield area and made his way around the defenders with a one-two step over and easily got around the keeper.
Two minutes later, Millington set up Beaton for his first of the game and several minutes later, Beaton returned the favour for Millington and Guyana lead 3-0 at the end of the first half.
The second half started off a bit slow and with a soggy field, the game got boring, but Guyana were still in control.
Trinidad had a wonderful opportunity to score, but thanks to an excellent save from the Guyanese goalkeeper, they were denied.
Down at the Flatlands Avenue goal end, Beaton and Millington and to an extent Codrington turned up the tempo of the game a bit that saw them put Trinidad on the back-foot for the rest of the game.
Codrington is yet to score in the tournament but came close after he got into the six-yard area only to have the ball taken off his feet by the Trinidad keeper.
But Beaton sent the Guyanese up 4-0 when he scored from point blank range thanks a ball that came from Codrington.
Teon Sargeant got lucky to score his first goal of the tournament after a shot, taken by Millington in a goal-mouth scramble, beat the keeper but lodged in a pool of water, leaving him to simply pat it home.
Guyana are yet to concede a goal in the tournament and so far they are clear favourites to challenge defending champions Jamaica for the title.
The Jamaicans inflicted a 7-0 drubbing on Dominica on the same day to make that dream final even more a reality, but those two will have to wait to know who their semi-finals opponents will be.
Meanwhile, Kevin Beaton and Devon Millington are the tournament’s highest two goalscorers, with eight and six goals respectively.
Guyana’s coach Samuel Bumbury was a bit more pleased with his team’s performance but said that his team could have won by a wider margin if they had only put into the game what they were practising over the past few weeks.
Guyana were without midfield standout Konata Manning, but the coach said that they were tidy in the middle and tightened up a bit on defence as compared to their last game.
Guyana scored the most goals for any team in the preliminary round (14) and are yet to concede a goal in the tournament that concludes on the eve (September 4) of New York’s Labour Day celebration.