'We'll see what happens, but it would be nice if things went our way' - Former-Bohs winger Kaleem Simon earns fresh Montserrat call-up ahead of crunch World Cup Qualifiers

Former Bohemians winger Kaleem Simon is hopeful that both he and his Montserrat teammates can qualify for the second round of the North & Central American World Cup Qualifiers, provided results go their way.  

Simon, now 24, made his debut for Montserrat in the last international window during a 2-2 draw with Antigua, before then making his second appearance in a 1-1 draw versus El Salvador.

His latest call-up comes as Montserrat head into their final two group games as they look to qualify for the second round of the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers.

“I’m delighted to get called up into the second series of games against the US Virgin Islands and Grenada,” the former Bohs and UCD winger told extratime.com.

“We’re happy, but also disappointed that we didn’t come away with one win, if not two wins from our first two game.

“We all looked at ourselves and thought we could have won both games. It puts us in a situation that we need to make sure that we win our next two games of course, but it also depends on what the other teams do.

“We just need to focus on ourselves and the next two games. We’ll see what happens, but it would be nice if things went our way in the other games.”

Should Montserrat win against the US Virgin Islands – which may tee themselves up nicely for their final group game against Grenada – that could see them top the group at the expense of El Salvador.

“We probably should have beaten Antigua, and we could have beaten El Salvador as well, we had chances to win the game.

“To not put either team to bed is quite frustrating but if we can win our next two games, hopefully things will go our way.



“If we do, we could be playing against the likes of the US and Honduras in the second round of qualifiers, so we just have to hope and pray.”

However, the Dubliner is wary of not getting carried away just yet at the prospect of reaching the second round of CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers.

“I haven’t looked at the rankings or anything but collectively as a group we’ll be thinking that we should be winning these two games.

“If we get a good result against the US Virgin Islands that will kick us into the game against Grenada and hopefully, we can get another result – and who knows where that will take us.

He added: “We have to stay grounded because – not in a negative way – there’s no point in having too much hope, because you’d get really upset if it doesn’t happen. But we don’t want to be too negative either.

“I’m hoping that we can go on and do it. We still have the Gold Cup qualifiers in July so that’s another thing to look forward to so we can’t throw our eggs all in one basket.”



Fixtures

*Montserrat -v- US Virgin Islands (10pm Irish Time) Wednesday 2nd June 2021. San Cristóbal Panamerican Stadium (Cuba).

*Grenada -v- Montserrat (12am Irish Time) Wednesday 9th June 2021. Grenada National Stadium (St George’s).

*Broadcast details TBC.

    About Andrew Dempsey

    View Full Profile