Tournament host Alpha “The Hammer” United and Rosignol United will meet in one quarter-final while Pele Football Club and Linden’s Topp XX will clash in the other as action in the Alpha United Carifesta football fiesta continues at the Georgetown Football Club (GFC) ground tonight.
These fixtures were set to kick-off last Wednesday but heavy and persistent rainfall forced the organizers to reschedule the staging off the mouth-watering matches to tonight at the Georgetown Football Club ground.
Hosts Alpha will certainly be looking to advance to the semi-final which is fixed for September 7 at the same venue, with the final kicking-off one week later at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence hopefully under the newly erected lights that were in use for the recently held Digicel Caribbean Championships.
To this effect, Alpha will depend strongly on their Golden Jaguars trio in custodian Ronson Williams , striker Anthony ‘Awo’ Abrams and midfielder Shawn ’Fatso’ Bishop.
Add Anthony Harding, Quincy Madramootoo, Elton Browne, Andrew Murray Jnr., Leon Grumble and defence stalwart Gordon Henry to the equation and Rosignol may regret taking the long 60.4 mile journey to Georgetown.
But they themselves are no pushovers as they boast players who are capable of creating an upset on any given day; players like 16-year-old Girson Baker, who has had the opportunity of representing Guyana at the Under-17 level, Tyson Carmichael and brothers Delwin and Delroy Fraser.
They also have in their line up, the hard-working Rawle Scott, who, along with Alpha’s Murray, was chosen to attend the training camp in Sutherland, England but was disqualified because he was over the stipulated age limit.
Kwame Goodluck is another player in their line up who is an imposing figure in midfield and with Newt Mahaica performing the custodian duties, Alpha will definitely have to work hard in this game which kicks-off at 1800hrs if they surely wish to make it to the next round.
The Pele/Topp XX clash will definitely serve as a main course to the Alpha/Rosignol clash especially with the mining town team being in such form of late even without the services of another Golden Jaguar and their prolific striker Collie ‘Hitman’ Hercules.
But Marlon Benjamin and captain Sheavon Seaforth have been holding the fort together while guiding the team to a resounding victory in the recently held Linden Invitational football tournament.
They have not been doing it all by themselves as able support has come from Kevin Beaton, Kirk Murphy, Romain Haynes and Delroy Dainty to name a few.
Pele will be looking to make the semi-finals and redeem themselves in the football fraternity in Georgetown as they have been going through a rough patch especially in the Georgetown Football Association (GFA) Premier League competition where they are languishing at the bottom half of the points table.
However, they still have some way to go in that competition and a victory in this tournament would certainly serve as a morale booster to the young team. To gain this victory, captain Dirk Archer and company will have to turn up with their `A’ game.
Archer can expect support from Solomon Austin, Troy Kellman, Quincy Hemerding, Devin Edinborough and Joshua Kamal, younger brother of former national youth player and present Guyana Defence Force defensive/midfield stalwart Sheik Kamal.
Action in this encounter which kicks-off from 2000hrs should be exciting, giving football fans who have been giving tremendous support to the tournament, their money’s worth.
