Concacaf Men’s U20 Championship... Relishing the challenge to mold a solid unit

Concacaf Men’s U20 Championship… Relishing the challenge to mold a solid unit – Dover

Oct 05, 2018 Sports

Goalkeepers during one of their training sessions. (Photo – GFF)

Head Coach of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Under-20 team that would be aiming to do this nation proud at the Concacaf Men’s U20 Championship set for November 1 -21, at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, Wayne Dover, has declared that he is relishing the challenge so far.
The shortlisted squad of 26 players which has been in preparation mode for the past two weeks has been for the most part been working on being fit gladiators for the task at hand. Guyana, ranked 24 in Concacaf at this level, has been drawn in Group F along with El Salvador (6th), Guatemala (8th), Curacao (16th) and the Cayman Islands (27th) with their first match against Guatemala on November2.
Dover, one of the more experienced tacticians in Guyana who has worked for years with the Senior Programme, disclosed that the transition to the very essential U20 level is a welcome challenge for him and his Technical staff.
”This is a special group of players as you would understand; it is the level just under the seniors and very critical to the national programme. What makes these players even more special is the fact that we have not been playing age group football for some years now so we have to work diligently towards bringing them up to the standard required at the highest level, tactically.”
The experienced Dover noted that in these players, this is the next generation of national players and it is essential that they are given every opportunity by way of sound preparation, the chance to show what they are made of.
A number of the players have been already exposed at the National senior level which Dover noted is a plus but cautioned that there would not be a quick fix scenario with regards to their development, but a constant, consorted and sustained effort must be made to get the best out of them and to ensure that Guyana is competitive come next month.

Head Coach Wayne Dover and Wilson Toledo overseeing training at the Carifesta Sports Complex ground. (Photo – GFF)

”We have been and will continue to work hard with these players with the aim doing Guyana proud in the Concacaf championship. As I have said before, we are focused on lots of conditioning and to a lesser extent, organising technically and tactically.”
Quizzed on the inclusion of overseas based players, Dover revealed that they would be including players from the Diaspora, informing that a number of them have already reached out to the GFF and would have also sent in their CVs as well as video clips for the federation’s Technical team to assess.