courtesy of: The Morning News
After a tremendous preliminary match against St. Lucia during the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying rounds here on Aruba, our team went to St. Lucia for game #2. Unfortunately, they encountered some setbacks, even before departing Aruba; 3 players – Maurice Escalona, Giovannie Thode and David Adul - could not go, so were replaced by Jonathan Werleman, Mark Ignacio and Jean-Luc Bergen.
The team had a number of stopovers with delays prior to arriving in St. Lucia, consequently they arrived quite exhausted at 10:00 p.m. instead of 6:10 a.m. with little opportunity for a good rest before the match.
Additionally, 12 pieces of luggage did not make it to their final destination, among them, those containing the team’s uniforms and training balls with several players also missing their football shoes, protectors and contact lens solutions.
Once arriving at their hotel, they contacted the FIFA match commissioner, who did his utmost to help them. Early the next morning, the team went to a local sport shop to acquire the needed uniforms, shoes and protectors for the entire team and gear for the goalkeepers, enabling them to compete.
The match took place that same afternoon with St. Lucia defeating Aruba 4-2 with two goals scored for Aruba by Frederick Gomes and Rensy Barradas. The score of 4-2 gave each team 6 points, which resulted in a overtime game with no goals. This resulted in a tense penalty match, and a 4-4 tie when Aruba missed their shot and St.Lucia scored, for a final 5-4, thus eliminating Aruba from the Brazil World Cup 2014 preliminaries.
Despite the setbacks suffered by Aruba’s team, they gave a tremendously dedicated performance, persevering despite everything.
The Aruba Football Union officials expressed they are very proud of our players who demonstrated that nothing will stop them from doing all they can!
