Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM
Golden Jaguars’ coach Shabazz keeps it REAL
“A confirmation that Guyana’s football is on the road to recovery!” This is how Guyana Football Federation (GFF) National Team Boss Jamaal Shabazz sees the Golden Jaguars two home wins against St. Lucia (2-0) and Grenada (2-0) in friendly internationals in the FIFA match window last month.
Jamaal Shabazz (right) and Clinton Urling.
After a period of constitutional turmoil the FIFA appointed Normalization Committee (NC), heading the GFF, persuaded Shabazz to take back the Guyana National team. With the country dor mant for two and a half years, Shabazz and his staff has given Chairman of the Normalization Committee Clinton Urling and the Golden Jaguars fans something to smile about.
Speaking about the victories Urling said: “The games represented opportunities to further assess where our senior men’s national team is in terms of our international standing as we prepare for the CONCACAF region 2018 World Cup qualifiers. The games revealed that we could have an effective mixture of resident talent and overseas-based talent and that the two could co-exist successfully in a short time frame.
This is in the context that the team has not included overseas-based players in over two and half years. Moreover, I was especially gratified by the fact that many of the goals were scored by players resident in Guyana.”
Urling also stated that the games also presented the opportunity for the newly appointed National Team Head Coach, Jamaal Shabazz to hit the ground running and prepare the team with minimum time for international duty.
“The technical team will now move forward and make adjustments based on observations from those games as we head towards encounters with upcoming challengers”, Urling noted.
But two wins and a draw in an unbeaten three game run is not enough to have Shabazz rest on his laurels. “This is only the beginning…..praise Allah for the results but we have got a lot of work to do and a very, very long way to go.
“The most important thing is that we are back on the pitch, guys are working hard competing for spots and the NC is providing us with the camps and the warm up matches necessary in the rebuilding process, stated Shabazz.
Guyana showcased two players with English Premier League experience against Grenada, Matthew Briggs – the youngest player to ever play in the English Premier League and Neil Dannes now with Bolton Wanderers made their debut with solid performances.
“Neil and Matthew brought experience, energy and quality to the programme. If we can get two more players of that pedigree we will become very competitive going forward, stated Shabazz.
While he looks forward to the start of the CONCACAF leg of FIFA World Cup Qualifiers in June, Shabazz had no illusions of the road ahead.
“We want to go as far as we can in the qualifiers but in the Caribbean we sell the people too much pipe dreams. Before we can talk about qualifying for a World Cup, CFU nations need to focus on administrative structure, facility acquisition, coach education and proper youth and grassroots development.
“There is a reason why Mexico, USA and Costa Rica have reached where they did in the last World Cup and any team in CFU who wants to get there have got to stop dreaming and starting putting the building blocks in place.
“Every Caribbean country wants to be a Cinderella in football. But Cinderella never played in a World Cup and she lost her slippers in her process to win the prince.
“FIFA and CONCACAF can only do so much for us, unless the Caribbean wakes up from its slumber, World Cups will be one off occurrences in the region. We got to keep it real and back our ambition with planning, organization and execution, Shabazz emphasized.
Guyana’s next stop is a friendly international against Suriname in Paramaribo on April, 30.
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