The quarter-finals of the Jamaica Premier League (JPL) will be played on Saturday with the teams that finish fourth to sixth in the regular season battling to earn a spot in the semi-finals against the two top finishers.

In the first quarter-finals match, at noon, the St Ann-Based Mount Pleasant Football Academy will battle Harbour View from Kingston and St Andrew, where Tivoli Gardens also originate and are scheduled to play the Clarendon based Vere United at 3:30 pm in the second match.

Both matches will be played at the Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence at the University of the West Indies, where the return leg will also be played next weekend.

Waterhouse won the preliminary round of the competition with 19 points, one ahead of Cavalier and both will sit out for two weeks as they await the winners of the quarter-finals.

Mount Pleasant also ended the preliminary round on 18 points, but had an inferior goal difference to Cavalier, while their opponents Harbour View, finished on 15 points. Tivoli Gardens completed the first-round with 17 points, two ahead of their opponents, Vere.

Mount Pleasant, in the day’s first encounter, will be seeking to avenge the 2-0 they suffered from Harbour View in the third round of matches in the preliminary stages of the competition. The goals were scored by Oquassa Chong and Lennox Russell.

Since that match on July 10, both teams have, however, taken different paths to get to this stage of the competition.
Harbour View were among the leaders of the competition at that stage as they had drawn their first two matches 1-1 against Waterhouse and Cavalier, before that triumph over Mount Pleasant. Chong scored in all three matches.

Harbour View then won their next match 2-0 against Dunbeholden to lead the points standing, but then had a dip in form and plummeted from the summit to the lower half of the standing after several poor results.

Harbour View, however, won their final two matches 1-0 against Molynes United and Arnett Gardens to sneak into the quarter-finals ahead of Dunbeholden.

Mount Pleasant, on the other hand, were consistent throughout the preliminary stage and always maintained a spot in the top six.

The St Ann-based Mount Pleasant have been playing in the competition for only three seasons and have impacted ever since. In their first season in 2019, they qualified for the second round as they ended the preliminary round third, behind Portmore United and Waterhouse.

In the aborted season last year, they were in the second position behind Waterhouse when the competition was stopped due to the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) on the island.

The match on Saturday will pit Harbour View, stalwarts of the league with four titles, which were gained in 2000, 2007, 2010 and 2013 against the upstarts Mount Pleasant.

Harbour View will be looking to Chong to lead their charge, as he has scored six times so far, which is half of the goals that Harbour View have scored. He will be assisted by Cristojaye Daley, who have netted three goals.

Mount Pleasant’s 13 goals are split amongst several players, with Kesslon Hall and Jourdaine Fletcher each scoring three and Kemar Beckford getting two. All three will have to figure prominently in their attack for Mount Pleasant to win.

The other match also pits a stalwart of the league, Tivoli Gardens against another upstart in Vere.
Tivoli Gardens have won the competition five times, in 1983, 1999, 2004, 2008 and 2011 while Vere are playing in their second season.

Vere were on the brink of being eliminated last season when the competition was aborted. Four rounds of matches were left in the preliminary stage and they were at the foot of the points standing.

One season later, personnel changes have helped their standard as while they have only scored nine goals, they have only conceded seven, which is the least given up by any team in the competition.