Jamaica came from two goals down at halftime to peg back Haiti 2-2 in their CONCACAF Nations League A Group B second-round encounter inside Kingston’s National Stadium on Tuesday night.
In a first half to forget, thanks to another sloppy rendition of football, Haiti silenced the home crowd and were two up on the quarter hour courtesy of a double strike from Don Louicius in the 12th and 15th minutes.
An own goal by Ricardo Ade in the 51st minute and a Bobby Reid penalty on 83 minutes restored parity for the Reggae Boyz to maintain their lead atop the six-team points standings with four points.
Cuba, who had played to a 0-0 result with Haiti in round one, joined Jamaica on four points, with Honduras inching up to third place on three points, followed by Haiti on two, and Suriname and Grenada occupying the cellar place with one point each.
On the pitch it was another slow burner as the home side struggled to connect on passes and build attacks, opting to employ the proverbial “route one” long balls from the back.
Match stats show that Jamaica attempted 73 long balls with only 32 being accurate.
Coincidentally it was Reid who forced goalkeeper Phony Placide into a save with just two minutes on the clock and from the resulting corner Shamar Nicholson headed wide at the back post.
There was nothing of significance for Jamaica for the remainder of the first 45 minutes as the ugly long balls were easily dealt with by the Haitian defence, and a clear lack of creativity, particularly in midfield from the double pivot of Joel Latibeaudiere and Kasey Palmer, plus second striker Leon Bailey, became increasingly evident.
Fortune favored Jamaica early in the second half when Demarai Gray struck the ball goalwards from the edge of the penalty box and Ade deflected it past Placide to give the Home side a glimmer of hope.
However, Haiti hit back and almost regained their two-goal cushion when they slammed the ball against Jamaica’s crossbar, in another moment of unsure defending.
And just after the hour mark captain Andre Blake saved his side from defeat when he advanced well and in a composed manner to deny the clearest opportunity for either side on the night on a counter attack which left the Jamaican backline embarrassingly outnumbered.
Romario Williams, a late substitute, in his first active play, unleashed a left footer from the edge of the penalty area which was handled by Ade and Reid stepped up to dispatch his spot kick with some degree of comfort.
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Jamaica pushed for the winner with Reid forcing Placide into a fine-diving save in the final moments of the contest, even as Hainti ended with 10 players as Djimy Alexis was dismissed in the 90th minute after picking up his second yellow card caution.
Jamaica’s head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson was pleased with the result after watching his side’s horror showing in the first half.
“I would like to remind everyone that Haiti is the top-seeded team in our group and if you look at the result I think it’s good that we did not lose this game, and performance-wise, I would say even at 2-0 I felt that we were the better team in that moment.
“So it was kind of a slap in the face, not one but two slaps in the face, and if we take away two, three mistakes within the given chances I think we played a really good game, but a coach is always the most pleased with the character that they (team) showed. They fought to the end, we wanted to win, I think everybody saw we wanted to win, we pushed for the win, so I’m mostly pleased with the character of the team and the togetherness to win this game,” he said.
Captain Blake agreed with his coach’s initial assessment.
“I think we started tonight much faster than we did in the last game (against Honduras) which is definitely an improvement. I think we played the way we trained for the most part, we executed the game plan but as coach said two unforced errors that kind of led to their goals. This is football, it happens and it’s the way we react and I think we showed a lot of character.
“Two zero down is never very easy to come back from against a very good team, so credit to the boys for sticking together, supporting each other and fighting through the situation. We didn’t win but we definitely built some character out there as a very good team if we want to have moments like these to show that you can come back from two goals down.”
The Icelandic coach had promised improvements from the first game against Honduras, particularly on offence, and despite the loads of long balls, most of which were wasteful, he argued that the team succeeded in many ways, though goalkeeper Placide was largely untroubled after being forced into a second-minute save.
“We started the game on a much higher tempo, too slow against Honduras so we did not open them. Today we moved it quick between the flanks and we used the flanks pretty well, could have crossed it a little bit more but I think we used the spaces available much quicker than we did against Honduras, meaning we had our most attacking players on the ball in the correct spaces, that is what we wanted to play in our attacking game, was to open spaces for our top four, five players.”
Hallgrimsson doubled down on the team’s good showing when he added:
“In my opinion there was no issue with the team, it’s just two errors, they had two attacks and scored in both their attacks, so I didn’t feel in the game there was something going wrong, absolutely not.
“I really felt we were playing well when we conceded the goals and like I said before I think today we played with more aggression in defence, we met them, we knew this was going to be a physical match and we met them there and we did not give them any energy… we stood our ground, I like that and we played in a high tempo, I like that as well and there we should build on this performance in my opinion.”
The Reggae Boyz return to action in CONCACAF Nations League A Group B fixture with games away to Haiti and Grenada next month.
Teams: Jamaica – Andre Blake, Amari’i Bell, Ethan Pinnock, Damion Lowe (Di’Shon Bernard), Javain Brown, Kasey Palmer, Joel Latibeaudiere (Daniel Johnson), Demarai Gray (Dujuan Richards), Leon Bailey, Bobby Reid, Shamar Nicholson (Romario Williams)
Booked: Bernard (89th), Johnson (90th +3)
Subs not used: Coniah Boyce-Clarke, Jahmali White, Tayvon Gray, Kevon Lambert, Demario Phillips, Adrian Mariappa, Gregory Leigh, Renaldo Cephas
Haiti – Jhnoy Placide, Ricardo Ade, Djimy Alexis, Garven-michee Metusala, Don Louicius (Shaynder Borgelain), Danley Jean (Francois Dulysse), Carl Sainte, Alex Christian, Jeppe Friborg (Roberto Louima), Mondy Prunier (Carnjy Antoine), Steven Seance
Booked: Sainte (31st), Alexis (63rd, 90th ejected), Ade (80th),
Subs not used: Alexandre Pierre, Garisonne Innocent, Derrick Etiene Jr, Jayro Jean
Referee: Cesar Ramos (Mexico)
Asst Ref 1: Alberto Morin (Mexico)
Asst Ref 2: Marco Bisguerra (Mexico)
Fourth Official: Enrique Santender (Mexico)
Teams P W D L Gf Ga Gd Pts
Jamaica 2 1 1 0 3 2 1 4
Cuba 2 1 1 0 1 0 1 4
Honduras 2 1 0 1 4 1 3 3
Haiti 2 0 2 0 2 2 0 2
Suriname 2 0 1 1 1 2 -1 1
Grenada 2 0 1 1 1 -5 -4 1
