Cuba vs. Jamaica in Concacaf Nations League

Jamaica, September 5.- With the arrival of the month of September, everything is ready for the opening whistle of the CONCACAF (Northern, Central American and Caribbean Football Confederation) Nations League, whose debut for Cuba is scheduled this Friday as a visitor against Jamaica, at the National Stadium Independence Park, in Kingston.

This will be in group B of League A of the competition, in which the squad led by coach from Sancti Spiritus Yunielis Castillo aspires to remain. Nicaragua and Trinidad and Tobago also appear.

For this new adventure, the Caribbean Lions will have the return to the ranks of attackers Onel Hernández (ING, Norwich City) and Dairon Reyes (Inter Miami). This duo has fully recovered from injuries that delayed them from seeing fields in their respective professional leagues.

But now both will be axes in the Cuban forward line. And especially Dairon will have minutes to be able to "exhibit" on the Independence grass, what he learned alongside Argentine star Leonel Messi as a Miami club squad.

However, on this occasion neither the lethal right winger Luis Paradela nor the creative midfielder William Pozo were called up, in addition to the central defender Carlos Vázquez (Cavafe) who have been key players in the growth of the group in recent years.

So, expectations are met to see if coach Castillo, with the arrival of Onel and Dairon accompanied by Maykel Reyes as center forward, maintains the ultra-defensive 5-4-1 game system, something like "putting the bus in front of the goal defended by Raiko Arozarena and prepare for a counterattack that could culminate fruitfully with a goal from Reyes.

Jamaica is well below its traditional competitive level. It fell in the three games it played in the last América Cup and its Icelandic coach Heimir Hallgrímsson resigned from the bench.

Thus Steve McClaren, their new trainer, has barely had the time necessary to adapt to the "reggae boyz." And Cuba could take advantage of this section.

The second Cuban presentation in this edition of the League of Nations will take place three days later, when, as host, it receives Nicaragua on the hot Antonio Maceo synthetic field in Santiago de Cuba. This year, Castillo's troop displays a victory against the Nicas.

Here it is worth mentioning that under the sun in the untamed Tierra Caliente (Hot Lands), what happened there in the latest international confrontations must be taken into account. Exhaustion has appeared sooner in the physique of the host players themselves, and the "strategy" of playing there to tire the opponent more has been quite the opposite.

The Cuban transit in this group B, League A of the CONCACAF Nations League will close next October, with a double defining date against Trinidad and Tobago, which like Jamaica, is also running below its real value.

In June they beat the pale Bahamas 7-1 and then, in two friendly duels as hosts, they barely managed to draw 2-2 with Grenada and beat Guyana 2-1 in Port of Spain.

There is still no date or venue for those two crucial matches of the Caribbean Lions against the Trinidadians. (Text: José Luis López Sado/ Cubahora) (Photo: Cubahora)