Sint Maarten's Chovanie Amatkarijo is seen dribbling while his teammates Ties Kerssies (Left) and Ilounga Pata look on during their final training session to prepare for the match against Haiti, in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico on Sunday.
MAYAGUEZ, Puerto Rico—After a convincing 2-0 victory over Aruba on Friday, the Sint Maarten national football team hope to continue their bright start to the CONCACAF Nations League Group B against Haiti today, Monday.
With both teams winning their opening matches – Haiti crushed hosts Puerto Rico 4-1 – the encounter is likely to decide who will take sole possession of top spot in the group.
Although coach Piet de Jong described the coming match against the Caribbean football giants as a David vs Goliath matchup, he is quietly confident his boys can pull off a surprise. “We believe we are capable to accomplish superhuman results,” he said.
“Most of our team are really young boys who still have so much potential. I see them grow every game,” de Jong told The Daily Herald during a video call from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. “Last year we made things really difficult for Guadeloupe.”
It is all a question of adjusting your organization, to know where to put pressure to hurt your opponent, he argued “We will have to transition even faster from offense to defense and keep the lines tight,” he said. “That way we hope to frustrate them because we saw in the game against Puerto Rico that they have a short fuse.”
In essence, Haiti play with five strikers, three actual strikers and two offensive midfielders. “The trick will be to utilize the space between the five attackers and five defensive players,” noted de Jong.
He has also cautioned his players not to give up easy freekicks around their own box. “Haiti have a really tall centre forward and both their centre backs are also physically strong,” agreed team captain Kay Gerritsen.
If Sint Maarten can manage to keep a tight defense, De Jong believes his team can hurt Haiti. “We have players who athletic and technically proficient. Some can take on and dribble past several players at once if the situations requires it. We create chances and can score in every game.”
..Especially the left side of Sint Maarten is tough to keep in check for any opponent. Midfielder Quinton Cristina earned himself CONCACAF’s player of the match against Aruba with his quick dribbling and darting runs, while Chovanie Amatkarijo was equally elusive on the left wing.
Should Haiti proof to strong, De Jong hopes his team will keep the score line tight and not give up too many goals. Last year they gave up too many goals in the first games and had to fight hard to accomplish a comeback. “I told my players they don’t want to let it come down again to the last 10 minutes of the last game.”
His team have come out of the Aruba game unscathed and are all fully fit to play. With the exception of Gerwin, “Smally“ Lake. The team’s leading scorer is still trying to regain full fitness after recovering from an injury and is not yet ready to play a full game. That, however, did not stop him from scoring a brilliant goal from 25 meters out to put his team ahead in the 80th minute against Aruba.
That Sint Maarten left it so late to put the result beyond doubt came down to wasting a hatful of chances with especially Elmer de Vries and Shawn Illidge coming close. Left center back Ronan Olivacci would eventually determine the final score in injury time when he recovered a ball in midfield before setting up his own goal with the help of Amatkarijo after a 60-meter sprint.
Aruba had surprised Sin Maarten at the beginning of the game with their early press. Goalkeeper Tyrell Richardson was forced to make a couple of important saves, the most outstanding of which was with his right foot when a Haiti striker was out through on goal.
Sint Maarten made use of the water break after 20 minutes to change things around with the center backs, choosing to switch the ball form side to side faster and forcing the Aruban defense back with deep offensive passes.
EINDHOVEN, Netherlands- - The Netherlands endured some nervy moments but in the end proved too strong for Bosnia as they began their Nations League campaign with a 5-2 triumph at the Philips Stadion on Saturday. Joshua Zirkzee scored on his first start for the Dutch to give the hosts a 13th-minute lead in their League A Group 3 encounter but they were caught by a swift counter-attack 14 minutes later that saw Ermedin Demirovic equalise.
Tijjani Reijnders restored the home side's lead on the stroke of halftime and Cody Gakpo made it 3-1 some 11 minutes into the second half. Veteran Edin Dzeko pulled one back 17 minutes from fulltime to offer Bosnia hope of getting something out of the game but Dutch pinch hitter Wout Weghorst and Xavi Simons scored in the closing stages to wrap up the victory. It was the first game for the Dutch since reaching the semi-finals of the European Championship in Germany in July and coach Ronald Koeman refreshed his side with an eye on the 2026 World Cup. Zirkzee, who made his debut as a substitute at the European Championship after a late call-up to the squad, grabbed the opportunity for a place in the starting lineup with Memphis Depay absent.
UNORTHODOX He found the net with an unorthodox header, with his back to goal, as he steered a looping ball into the net after Xavi Simons’s shot had been blocked and spun high into the air. Bosnia’s equaliser was expertly finished by Demirovic and came from two passes from deep in their defence, cutting through the middle of the Dutch line-up. Reijnders struck the crossbar with a sweeping shot in the 42nd minute and then found the net two minutes into stoppage time at the end of the first half with a left-footed finish after a pass from Zirkzee put him in on goal.
Reijnders turned provider for Gakpo’s goal, with a cutting pass across the face that Gakpo slid home in the 56th minute. It looked an easy assignment for the Dutch after that until Bosnia’s teenage substitute Esmir Bajraktarevic, who has switched his international allegiance from the U.S. to Bosnia, provided a long, and inch-perfect, pass for the 38-year-old Dzeko to score his 66th goal on his 136th appearance for Bosnia. Suddenly Bosnia looked dangerous and the Dutch were under pressure but home nerves were settled when Weghorst reacted quickest to a rebound in the 88th minute and then Simons scored two minutes into stoppage time.
Sint Maarten national team assistant coach Harry Kerssies is seen instructing his players during training in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico on Wednesday.
SCSA Eagles goalkeeper Chandro Wilkin poses with the St. Maarten Football Federation Super Cup Champion trophy in this file photo from 2023.
PHILIPSBURG—A slimmed down Sint Maarten national football team are currently in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico to prepare for their opening match against Aruba in the CONCACAF Nations League Group B on Friday, September 6.
Italians Errani and Vavassori win US Open mixed doubles title NEW YORK- - Italians Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori claimed a 7-6(0) 7-5 victory on Thursday to win the mixed doubles title at the U.S. Open and end unseeded all-American pair Taylor Townsend and Donald Young's storybook run.
The victory gave five-times women's doubles Grand Slam champion Errani and Vavassori their maiden Grand Slam mixed doubles title in only their third major tournament together after Wimbledon and the Paris Olympics. Vavassori and Errani drew first blood and took a 6-5 lead as Townsend drilled a backhand long, but the Americans broke straight back to force a tiebreaker. The third-seeded Italian duo blazed through the tiebreaker with ease, which appeared to fill them with confidence as they broke early in the second set to take a 3-1 lead. Townsend and Young showed great spirit to break back and level at 4-4, but in similar fashion to the first set, their resistance was short-lived and the Italians broke in the final game to clinch victory.
Defeat marked the end of a long partnership for Townsend and Young, who have known each other since childhood and reached the semi-finals at Flushing Meadows in 2014, with 35-year-old Young set to retire from tennis and switch to pickleball. It was more disappointment at the U.S. Open for Townsend, who also reached the semi-finals of the women's doubles alongside Katerina Siniakova, where they lost to Zhang Shuai and Kristina Mladenovic. Townsend and her Czech partner won the women's doubles title at Wimbledon this year.
NETHERLANDS - Captain Virgil van Dijk has committed his future to the Netherlands until the 2026 World Cup at least, but the door is shut on Steven Bergwijn following the striker's transfer to Saudi Arabia, coach Ronald Koeman confirmed on Tuesday. Koeman, who led the Dutch to the Euro 2024 semi-finals before a loss to England, is preparing for a Nations League clash with Bosnia & Herzegovina in Eindhoven on Saturday and revealed he flew to Liverpool to have face-to-face talks with Van Dijk.
"I thought it was so important to go to him to see and feel with him: are you going to give it your all for another two years at the highest level and do you still see a future for yourself? And he does. And I do the same with him. All doubt is gone, he just goes on," Koeman told reporters. "He admitted he did not reach the level you would expect from him as a player at the European Championship. As captain, I think he did a great job. But perhaps as a result, he put too much energy into others rather than into himself." Koeman confirmed he had not considered Bergwijn for selection after a poor start to the season at Ajax Amsterdam and his move to Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia.
"The book is basically close to him. He knows what I think about this," Koeman said. "When you are 26 (years old), your main ambition should be sporting, not financial. These are choices that players make. "I have never been in that situation, because I could go to Barcelona. He could have stayed at Ajax, that's not bad, is it? You have to respect that choice, but personally I wouldn't (have moved)." Koeman also confirmed that it was unlikely midfielders Marten de Roon and Georginio Wijnaldum will have a place in his squads in the future as he looks at other options. Daley Blind has already announced his retirement from the national team.
Koeman also failed to call up lead forward Memphis Depay, who is currently without a club after leaving Atletico Madrid, though it has been reported he is in talks with Sevilla. "It's primarily because he doesn't have a club. That means you don't play football and you can't be with the national team. Memphis is 30, let's hope he gets a club and gets fit. Then he is still an option for me." The Dutch will also host Germany in Amsterdam next Tuesday.
