GFF, CONCACAF Gold Cup Qualification bid begins with Rio Train/Play Camp – Forde

Jul 25, 2018 Sports

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By Franklin Wilson
Guyana, through its flagship team, the ‘Golden Jaguars’ have never qualified for the CONCACAF flagship championship, ‘Gold Cup’, but the current Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Executive and Technical Team has promised to pull out all the stops to ensure that history is created with qualification for the expanded CONCACAF Gold Cup (CGC) which will see 16 nations contesting in 2019.
The first challenge towards the Gold Cup would be the CONCACAF Nations League (CNL) Qualifiers which begin on Saturday September 8 for Guyana when the lads from the Land of Many Waters play host to Barbados.
Next on the radar would be an away match against the Turks and Caicos Islands on Saturday October 13; Tuesday November 20, French Guiana will host Guyana, while the Guyanese would welcome Belize on Saturday March 23, 2019 to round out this leg of the CONCACAF Nations League Qualifiers.
Preparation to succeed is key to the vision and the GFF has indicated that they intend to empower the team and Technical Staff in order to achieve the goal. This new journey President Forde and Technical Director Ian Greenwood disclosed would kick off with a two-week train/play camp set for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from August 12-25, next.
”The GFF team is determined to qualify for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, I think we have been knocking on that door for far too long and we think that we deserve to be there,” GFF President, Wayne Forde stated.
The GFF head is of the firm view that the necessary talent abounds locally and they have in the past year been focusing on putting together a solid Technical Team, noting that the choice to appoint Head Coach, Michael Johnson, the first Guyana Head Coach to be the holder of a UEFA Pro Licence, is an exceptional one.
”Coach Johnson has been working hard to build the new look national professional technical team, we will use the opportunity for the train/play camp to expose some of our local coaches that we would like to see elevated.”
Forde alluded to the fact that the new coaching arrangement has a capacity building component attached to it where Johnson would use every opportunity to train and empower local coaches with a view of helping them to improve their craft.
The team that would be travelling to Rio, Forde noted, would be 90% local based: “Because the coach has been absolutely clear that he wants to have a hard long look at the local talent that we have and I think that is good news for our local players and coaches. I’m optimistic that many of our local boys would be able to make the final cut so the strategy is clearly to take that first step on our way to qualifying for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, we have all the raw material here to make that happen and I expect that in a matter of months, Guyana would be, probably announcing a public holiday for the first time that the Golden Jaguars are entering into the CGC.”
Clear National Plan & Coaching Philosophy – TD Ian Greenwood
Technical Director of the GFF Ian Greenwood has declared that there is a clear national plan and coaching philosophy which is one of the key elements that Head Coach Michael Johnson went through in the interview and selection process for the position.
Greenwood who has been overseeing a new wave in the local game, especially at the youth level noted that there has always been a gap between youth and senior teams and this is where Coach Johnson comes into play in terms of bridging the gap.

”So what is happening with the youth teams would be developed into the senior team as well, obviously the coach would have game by game plan as well. But there is now a clear and deliberate process in how we are developing and coaching our teams.
All of our processes are a long term game and it’s all deliberate; we’ve designed clear key performance indicators (KPI) for how we are going to qualify for the 2019 CGC and ultimately the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”
Greenwood posited that it is not something they have just plucked out of the air but there are steps in place from the Academy Training Center programmes to the senior team and how they are going to do that.
”The key element along with the coach is the new senior staff that we have put together, so we are going to have a head of sports science, head people and culture, head of recruitment, player’s liaison officer, specialist position coaches, specialist goalkeeping coaches, so the full staff is high level professionals with experience training national teams themselves so when that’s unveiled it’ll really signal our intent from the GFF.
We are pushing to be one of the top teams from the CFU which we have the raw materials to do and we are very excited about going to Brazil because it’ll be the first opportunity for the staff and players to gel together.”
While the players are beginning to understand the new standards that are being set and the fact that they need to buy into it on and off the field, Greenwood believes that the coaches too will have the chance to align themselves.
”It’s going to be a key bench mark in opportunity to the coaching staff as well to understand what we’ve got and where some of our deficiencies are and also where our key recruitment targets for internationally based players are.”
TD Greenwood also indicated that there are a number of players they are in dialogue with at the moment that would have played for England and in the premier league who they be seeking to bring on board in the CNL.
”So we are very excited about that, we know we’ve also got some key young players based in Guyana that we’ll be pushing through, players like Gareth, Cecil Jackman, Job Caesar along with experienced players we have here such as Bamfield, Sheldon Holder who is playing out in Trinidad so we do feel we’ve got a lot of strong players in all positions to really push the programme.”

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