Nia Christopher On Tonight’s Concacaf Game
[Written by Stephen Wright]
Nia Christopher insists the Bermuda women’s national team have “no fear” as they prepare for their crunch final game of the Concacaf W Gold Cup qualifiers away to the Dominican Republic today [December 5].
Bermuda need just a draw to finish top of group C League B after being awarded a 3-0 home win over Saint Vincent and the Grenadines by the Concacaf disciplinary committee on Sunday.
The match was cancelled after Saint Vincent and the Grenadines were denied permission to travel on their intended route to Bermuda after making late changes to their schedule.
Christopher was part of the team that beat the Dominican Republic 2-0 at home in September and said they are determined to do the double over their opponents, who are one point behind them in the standings.
“We have the same goal – nothing has changed,” Christopher told Bernews. “We want the win and to get the three points.
“We’ll go out there against the Dominican Republic and give it our all. We’ve worked hard for this and believe in each other. We won’t worry about them; we’ll just focus on ourselves and what we need to do.”
Should Bermuda win the group they will advance to the play-offs where they will face one of the group runners-up from League A to decide who qualifies for the inaugural W Gold Cup, which runs from February 20 to March 10 in the United States.
“We’ve been waiting for opportunities like this for a long time. It’s really exciting,” Christopher said. “All of the [Bermuda] players have a close relationship and have been playing together for a long time. It definitely helps. We want to show we can compete against the top nations.”
The 22-year-old forward joins up with the squad after Towson University’s memorable season came to an end after losing 3-1 away to North Carolina in the NCAA first round last month.
Towson finished their campaign with the most wins in a single season, reaching the tournament for the first time in their programme’s history.
“We gave it our all against North Carolina and had a good season,” added Christopher, who played for Eagle FC in the USL [United Soccer League] W League last summer, scoring 11 goals in 14 matches for the Pennsylvania side and making the USL W Team of the Year.
