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Letter to Sports Editor…What is the best Golden Jaguars XI?

Mar 24, 2015 Sports

Dear Sports Editor,
“The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change. The leader adjust the sails” – John. C Maxwell
This erudite quote from world renowned American motivational speaker aptly describes the current state of Guyana football in the Normalization Committee era.
The pessimist for various reasons don’t believe the Normalization Committee either is truly the right answer for Guyana football or chosen to correct people to be part of the GFF, the optimist that believes the exact opposite and in the midst of these two trade winds – FIFA has tasked Clinton Urling with adjusting the sails of Guyana football future.
Regardless of which position you may hold, the “Golden Jaguars” are back playing football and it gives fans, arm-chair experts and media the chance to watch and talk about football – which is all that really matters.
News that the Jaguars recruited English based players Matthew Briggs and Neil Danns are notable coups, especially considering that in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers a few players of similar ilk rejected the team.
Since Kayode McKinnon and American Nick Millington retired, captain Chris Nurse has not had a quality mid-field partner; therefore Danns acquisition would give the team a strong first team mid-field duo.
Similarly the retirements of Leon Cort, Charles Pollard, JP Rodrigues created similar gaping hole in the defensive unit and young Briggs would provide much needed quality to this area.
From overseas its obviously impossible to judge how good or not the local Guyana players could be, but from what we know of the Guyana born or foreign based players in leagues around the world, there is potential for Guyana’s best XI to be fairly innovative.
In my view given the strengths and weaknesses the team, I would like to see Guyana implement a variation of the 3-4-3 or 3-4-1-2 formation.
Despite getting Briggs in my view I’m not confident the current available defenders give a  robust enough look like the aforementioned Cort/Pollard/Rodriguez trio to play a traditional back-four system. Thus with Briggs being a left-footer, a back-three of Colin Nelson/Jamaal Smith/Matthew Briggs would help to cover those deficiencies somewhat.
Ricky Shakes and Walter Moore have the energy, attacking intent and crossing ability to cover the wing-back roles effectively and Akel Clarke to be the goalkeeper.
In the forward positions Emery Welshman, Pernell Schultz and Trayon Bobb can be possibly used similarly to how Liverpool utilizes Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana and Phillipe Coutinho; attacking the opposition with pace, incisive moment and trickery instead of traditional target man striker role that many CFU teams implement.
If the formation is more 3-4-1-2, the “1” hole role could be deployed by the Jaguars mercurial talent of the last decade – Gregory Richardson. He certainly has the ability to play as an advanced play-maker or as the Italians would say “trequartista” – who could forget his superb assists for Bobb’s two goals in that famous draw in El Salvador.
It will be interesting to see if Briggs and Danns joining the Jaguars will encourage other European league experienced players of Guyanese heritage to follow suit specifically – Jerome Thomas from Crystal Palace or former England striker Jay Bothroyd who is now playing in Japan.
What’s obvious is that entire CFU region is battling for one World Cup spot because USA, Mexico and Costa Rica will qualify barring a miracle and Central American teams are a major step ahead of CFU teams.
Suriname has plans to change their citizenship rules to bring back players from Holland, Jamaica are chasing high profile premier league players, Curacao hiring Patrick Kluivert as coach are some examples around the region that gives an early sign that the CFU team that can recruit the most foreign based talent and coaching will put themselves in the best position to be at Russia 2018.
Colin Benjamin

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