Gibraltar’s Men’s National Team took to the field this evening, where they had to settle for a 0-0 draw at the Victoria Stadium against Caribbean nation Grenada, Gibraltar’s first opponents from outside of Europe in the UEFA-era.
A positive result on a horrid wet and windy evening, Gibraltar was agonisingly close to starting 2022 off with a win and will feel they deserved it, following an impressive offensive and defensive display by Julio Ribas’ men in testing conditions.
Gibraltar started the better of the two sides and were almost in the lead within the opening five minutes through Liam Walker. A free-kick on the edge of the area saw the midfielder send Charles-Cook scrambling across his line as the ball dipped and swerved narrowly wide of the top corner.
The home side continued to boss proceedings in the opening minutes, however, as the half wore on, Grenada began to establish themselves and looked to cause Gibraltar their own problems, especially down the left flank through Romar Frank.
With this being said it was Gibraltar who seemed to take the lead in the 30th minute as Lee Casciaro burst in behind the Grenada defence before slotting the ball into the back of the net. Unfortunately for the cheering crowd, the linesman flagged for offside and the goal was wrongly ruled out.
Despite the slice of bad luck, Gibraltar were not discouraged and found themselves again testing Charles-Cook moments later, this time through Ethan Britto whose goal-bound header almost gave Gibraltar their breakthrough, however, Grenada’s goalkeeper stood firm.
The score remained 0-0 as the sides went into the half-time break, with the second half proving to be almost identical to the first with Gibraltar carving out the clearer of the chances.
In fact, Gibraltar would again go on to have the first chance of the half, this time coming through debutant centre-back Bernardo Lopes, who found himself in space and with the crowd urging him on, let fly from range which required the intervention of Charles-Cook to claw the ball away from his bottom corner.
As was the case in the first half, it was not going all Gibraltar’s way, as was highlighted in the 65th minute as a ball flashed across the face of goal saw Bradley Banda called upon for the first time in the match, as the goalkeeper pounced at the feet of John-Brown to deny the striker from point blank range.
Grenada would go closer minutes later and with Banda this time beaten, up stepped veteran defender Scott Wiseman to head Mitchell’s goal-bound effort off the line and away from danger to keep the scoreline at 0-0.
The close chances only spurred the visitors on as Grenada would go on to boss possession for the closing minutes of the second half, however, there would be one last flurry for Gibraltar.
In injury-time at the end of the 90, Gibraltar bombarded the Grenada goal with Walker first going close with another long range free-kick, before Wiseman had his own effort cleared off the line before the full-time whistle blew.
Gibraltar are next in action on Saturday, when they take on Faroe Islands at 18:00.
