FRANCE 98 – Jamaica-Croatia – W. Barrett: “All is not yet lost”

Warren BARRETT (1), captain:

“I’m a little disappointed this evening, but that’s football: some you win, some you lose. Despite the defeat, I think we played very well for this our first ever game in the World Cup finals in front of a wonderful crowd. We would like to have given them a positive result, but we came up against a good team in CROATIA, who we gave too many chances to. This defeat is that much harder to take considering we just missed a second equaliser just after PROSINECKI scored. But this is a very difficult group, and all is not yet lost. A win and a draw might perhaps take us through to the second round.”

Robert EARLE (16):

I think we could have held on a little longer. I am especially disappointed by the second goal we conceded, which was a great goal, but one we could have avoided. At least we’ve proved that the Croatians had to take us seriously. The coach decided to play me more in attack than in midfield. That worked very well for me because I scored my first goal in official international competition this evening. I had already scored for JAMAICA, but that was in a friendly.”

Theodore WHITMORE (11):

“After this defeat we are last in the group, but we’ve still got two matches to play. It was a real pleasure to play this evening in front of such a crowd for our World Cup debut. After equalising just before the break, we really thought that we could create an upset, but in the second half, we gave the Croatians too much, notably in our marking, and when you’re faced with players of the calibre of PROSINECKI, that’s unforgivable. We’ve still got a few problems to iron out, but I’m still very confident for the rest of the competition.”