🇦🇬 Jacques Passy arrives in Antigua & Barbuda to change Benna Boys' mindset
The Mexican manager is returning to the Caribbean but has tough World Cup qualification matches in his near future.
Jacques Passy has Javier Aguirre beat.
Not in a match, mind you. Not any time soon. The new Antigua and Barbuda coach must first face Cuba and Honduras in World Cup qualification in June. His team will be the underdog in those matches, just as it would be against Aguirre’s El Tri.
But while Aguirre has managed two national teams outside of Mexico, Passy now has managed three, becoming the first Mexican coach to do so.
The former St. Kitts and Nevis and Dominican Republic manager didn’t accept the role simply to become the answer to a trivia question, however. Passy arrives in St. John convinced he can take the Caribbean nation, with its population just over 100,000, to new heights.
“If I’m able to bring the right players and change the mindset and create the winning atmosphere I want to create, I am sure we can take Antigua to the top 10, 12 in Concacaf - which would be remarkable,” Passy said Wednesday on the Concacast.
Antigua and Barbuda currently sits 159 in the FIFA rankings - 19 in Concacaf - after a miserable 2024 in which the team failed to secure a single win in eight tries. The team’s last win came back in October 2023, when it beat Bermuda in the Concacaf Nations League.
Passy knows he’ll need to set a new tone for a team that is hearing lots of locals express doubt about its capabilities.
“You need to change a lot because once you’re in a position where you haven’t won a game since October 2023, what happens is some players and many people start thinking the country doesn’t have what it takes to win,” Passy said. “So, you’re engaging with players, and everyone is frustrated. The change needs to happen immediately.
“It’s going to be a fresh start, fresh tactics, fresh ideas,” he continued. “When you take over a national team that hasn’t won in a year and a half, you can’t think it’s going to be one or two slight changes that are going to make a difference.”
Now, Passy must make those overhauls as he looks to get victories against Cuba and Honduras in World Cup qualification. Those teams sit atop the group with the top two teams advancing to the next round of World Cup qualification.
The Mexican manager believes the Benna Boys could surprise Cuba ,and while he’s not underestimating Honduras he wonders if manager Reinaldo Rueda might deploy an alternate lineup should Los Catrachos have their place in the third round locked up by July 10. Yet, he also knows that everyone outside of Antigua will be expecting more of the same from the national team, especially against such stiff opposition.
“If you use the word, ‘reasonable’ I have to tell you what is reasonable is to lose both games, right?” he said with a laugh. “But the reality is they didn’t bring me to be reasonable. They brought me to change the mindset. My intention is to change the mindset, the standards and the professionalism from day one.”
There’s reason to believe he can raise the standard.
Passy was a finalist for Concacaf Coach of the Year in 2018 after impressive performances with St. Kitts and Nevis in Concacaf Nations League qualification - including a 1-0 defeat to Canada. There, he helped develop locally based players, handing several key roles in the Sugar Boyz squad, and also recruited players who remain important to the national team even seven years later.
Player recruitment can the be quickest route to success for some Concacaf nations, convincing eligible players abroad to join a project and potentially push for World Cup glory. Passy said he’s already fielding calls from scouts and agents about players who are eligible and has a list of several dozen players who could suit up for Antigua & Barbuda.
He will not, however, be giving known quantities like Southampton fullback Kyle Walker-Peters a ring about filing a change of association - at least not yet.
“In this first stage, we need to get players that are still willing to give it a shot - maybe they’re not at Premiership level, maybe they’re not playing in the highest division, but yes they’re playing in the Championship, League 1, League 2 and they understand they can be instrumental in leading the way,” Passy said. “I’m trying to build a great team in which the words “overseas” and “local players” disappear and I’m going to create a great base.
“From that great base, once we get one or two good results, and once we start getting comments from players themselves because they’re the best ambassadors, then I can go after the absolute top players.”
But Passy is not demanding a years-long evaluation period, either, or asking to be judged only if those top players come in.
While the 2026 World Cup looks all but impossible to qualify for, an expanded field in 2030 as CONMEBOL formally requested Thursday, could open doors for even countries as small as Antigua and Barbuda, with its population nearly four times smaller than Iceland, the smallest country to make a World Cup.
Passy knows, however, that positive returns will need to come in much sooner for his bosses at the Antigua and Barbuda FA to continue supporting him, and for him to know he can have success there.
“I don’t believe in slow processes. I believe that changes need to be seen very rapidly, very quickly,” he said. “My intention is in (the qualifiers) to have results, and when I mean results, it’s, ‘We need to get points in those two matches.’ I know the dream of being in the World Cup at this moment is impossible for Antigua, but you never know.
“You never know in football. What I can tell you is that for day one, Antigua is going to think about those as matches that are must-wins for us.”
If he is able to wring results like that out of Antigua and Barbuda, it may not be long until Passy would do battle with Aguirre’s Mexico in a Concacaf competition, not just in the record books.