St. Kitts and Nevis debuting in Concacaf Women’s Olympic qualifying

Islanders impressed in preliminary round scoring 20 goals in four matches

New coach Jene Baclawski: “It’s a dream and an honour”

Twelve months ago, very few football fans in St. Kitts and Nevis could have imagined that their women’s team would be entertaining hopes of a place at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

The fact is, however, that the Caribbean islanders are among the eight national teams that will fight it out in the Concacaf qualifying competition for the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament later this year. And it was back in January 2019 when the St. Kitts and Nevis Football Association contacted Jene Baclawski, the coach who is now helping to fire the dreams of the small island nation.

“It took a long time for it all to get confirmed,” explained Baclawski, who divides her time between her new post and her work with the South Texas Youth Football Association. “The first time I met the players was in September, in time for the first round of the Olympic qualifiers. It’s a dream and an honour to be considered for the job of coaching this fantastic group of women and developing football in St. Kitts and Nevis.”

It proved to be a happy beginning for Baclawski and her players as they won through to the final round after scoring 20 goals in their four games and conceding only two. It was quite an achievement for a country with only 55,000 inhabitants.

“Our style of play is to adapt ourselves to the opposition,” said Sugar Girlz captain Kyra Dickinson. “We work hard on the high press and the low block too. We like to play a direct game, impose ourselves physically and keep the ball, though it all depends on the match situation. Ideally what we like to do is put the ball in the back of the net as quickly as we can.”