Allen proud to play his part for Montserrat
TAKING THREE touches of the ball to settle himself, Jamie Allen then delivers a curling, swooping cross to the far post that is met with a powerful header into the net.
It’s a goal that produces a hugely significant result in the history of Montserrat national football team.
That 89th minute equaliser by Nottingham Forest striker and Montserrat captain Lyle Taylor secured a draw against El Salvador, a nation who have featured at two World Cups and sit 113 places above them.
It was the second of two World Cup qualifiers for Montserrat, who are ranked 183rd in the world. Four days earlier, on March 24, Montserrat had only managed a disappointing 2-2 draw with Antigua and Barbuda, but there was nothing disappointing about a point against El Salvador.
“It was a great experience, we played two good teams, it was good to get away and be involved in both games,” said Allen, who now has four caps for Montserrat. “It’s strange to me, travelling the world and playing football with different players, but you adapt quite quickly. The first time I went, I knew a few players so it was easier to settle in and get used to it. But the fact that I’m away travelling and playing football, it’s fantastic you can’t complain.
“The first game against Antigua, we should have won, we were very disappointed to come away with a point in that game. But against El Salvador we put in a fantastic performance, nobody expected us to win or get anything from that game but we managed to get a point and probably could have won it at the end. El Salvador’s the big team in the group, I believe they’ve got players playing in the MLS, so they’re expected to beat everyone really. So for us to get a point against them was fantastic, and at the end we could have won it. It shows how far we’ve come as a team that we came off the pitch disappointed with a point against El Salvador.”
Montserrat have two more World Cup qualifiers in June against US Virgin Islands and Grenada. They will need to win both their remaining games and hope other results go their way for them to top their group.
They would then play a twolegged tie against one of the five other group winners from the CONCACAF region. If they won that, would go into a final, eight team group including Mexico, the USA and Jamaica, in which the top three teams qualify and the fourth-placed side goes into a play-off.
“We’ve done well to get this far but we’ve just got to focus on winning games. Nobody expects us to win the group but we believe we can, we’ve just got to win both those games (in June) and hopefully somebody puts in a result our way, and who knows what can happen,” said Allen, who qualifies to play for Montserrat through his grandmother.
““It (playing in a World Cup) would be a dream come true, but that’s a long way off, all we’ve got to do is just stick together, play our football and who knows what can happen.”
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