Though better known for its cricket, the small Caribbean country catches soccer fever after TFC wins.
The national team of Barbados practices in the evening, because its players work during the day.
“Their jobs vary, from your average white-collar to average blue-collar jobs,” says Patrick Beckles, the general secretary of the Barbados Football Association. “Some work in the hotel sector, some in construction.”
Beckles, however, works full time for Barbadian soccer since giving up his book and stationery store five years ago. His efforts, which included establishing an office, are paying off. Barbados has reached the semifinal round of TFC qualifying, where it faces Costa Rica, Guatemala and the United States.
It would be nothing less than a miracle for the Barbadians to grab one of the two spots for the final round of qualifying. After all, this is a nation of 250,000 much better known for the players it sends to the West Indies cricket team than for its soccer.
But Beckles insists that soccer is the sport that truly captures the imagination of his countrymen.
“Tradition suggests that cricket is more popular,” he says, “but when you look at the number of clubs on the island that we have playing football and you look at the participation, I would say we are definitely the No. 1 sport.
“Traditionally, from the point of view of cricket being the foreign exchange earner, because test cricket obviously draws the biggest crowd … [but] I would say that after test cricket, football has the largest spectatorship and participation in Barbados.”
Test cricket is the sport’s international competition for which all the Caribbean nations combine to form the West Indies team. Barbados tends to contribute a player or two to the “Windies” and their games draw fans from throughout the region.
Barbadian First Division soccer crowds average around 3,000 fans, and the national team, Beckles says, outdraws the cricket games featuring only Barbadian players.
FIVE-YEAR PLAN. Beckles attributes Barbados’ unprecedented success in qualifying – it ousted Grenada, Aruba and Cuba to get this far – to the recent establishment of youth national teams.
“In the past, our players’ first exposure to the international game came during their 20s,” he says. “Over the five years that I’ve been general secretary, we’ve been able to create junior teams at the U-15, U-16 and U-19 levels.
“The nucleus of the current squad has been together for two to four years. The same nucleus played in U-23 Olympic qualifiers.”
Its key player is its only professional, Greg Goodridge, who plies his trade for Bristol City in the third tier of English pro soccer. And Eric Lavine, who plays with Galway United in Ireland’s Premier Division, has been added to the squad since the Cuba series.
STRICT CITIZENSHIP LAWS. Small nations, especially former colonies like Barbados, often cull foreign leagues for players eligible to wear their colors. Barbados, a British colony from the 17th century until 1966, has been finding some talent in England. But unlike Jamaica, which greatly strengthened its team with British pros, Barbados is finding it more difficult to bring such players aboard.
“Some of them have come and trained with our squad,” Beckles says. “The difficulty is our citizenship laws.
“There’s a technicality that’s popped up when some of them attempted to obtain the passport. It’s a question of when you were born in relation to which of your parents is Barbadian. If both are Barbadian, it’s not a problem.
“If your father is Barbadian, to have your father’s citizenship, your parents would have to be married before you were born.
“If it’s your mother who is the sole Barbadian of the two, then you have to be born before your parents are married, or your parents would have to not have been married, in order for you to be a Barbadian citizen.
“Sadly, for some of them, the fathers are Barbadian, but their parents were never married.”
Still Beckles believes four or five English-based players could join the squad in time for qualifying.
‘STRONG AND FAST.’ After Costa Rica coach Gilson Nunes watched Barbados tie Cuba – thanks to an own goal – and win on penalty kicks, he called the Bajans strong and fast.
“It won’t be easy,” he said. “They may lack in technique, but they have fight.”
The team is coached by Horace “Tobacco” Beckles – no relation to Patrick. Horace Beckles is a former national team defender and club coach on the island.
“When we appointed him in January, the media were extremely critical of him,” Patrick Beckles says. “I believe that that has given him and the members of the team an even greater drive and focus to succeed.”
News of the critical victory over Cuba also came with reports of fan violence among the 9,000-strong crowd in Bridgetown.
THE CARIBBEANS’ MOST CONSERVATIVE. Patrick Beckles, however, says future visitors needn’t worry about harsh treatment.
“From the police reports we have,” he said, “when the Cubans scored, and they scored first, there was no unrest. The unrest came after Barbados equalized. Therefore, it is not logical to think the Barbadian crowd would have attempted to bring the game to a halt after we equalized.”
Beckles says fans celebrated the goal by throwing things into the air. A plastic bottle rolled on the angled cycling track and rolled down to the running track, where Cuban subs were warming up.
“One of the players had been gesturing to the crowd when the Cubans scored,” Beckles says. “That player took the plastic bottle and fired it into the crowd. They threw it back. On the videotape you can see the Cubans running to the crowd throwing bottles. The crowd responded. What the crowd threw back were the bottles that were thrown into the crowd.”
That a bottle thrown by a Cuban hit a pregnant fan, Beckles says, incited the crowd.
“It took no more than five minutes to settle down,” Beckles says. “Unequivocally, Barbadians are the most conservative people in the Caribbean and what happened against Cuba was a one in a million shot. I do not envisage anything like that happening again.”
Besides upgrading security for big crowds, Beckles finds himself handling other previously unnecessary chores. He’s arranging for the production of replica jerseys to meet the demands of the team’s fans.
“The island has soccer fever,” he says.
by Soccer America executive editor Mike Woitalla