Latest update January 17th, 2025 6:30 AM
Concacaf U-20 Championship USA 2018… Junior Jaguars put in spirited performance despite loss – Head Coach Dover
Head Coach Wayne Dover speaking with his charges at half time of the Guatemala match on Friday last.
Guyana’s U-20s determined to continue improving with three matches to go.
By Franklin Wilson in Florida, USA
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Despite going down to Guatemala by a 4-0 margin on Friday in their opening Group ‘F’ match of the Concacaf Under-20 Championship at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, USA, Head Coach of the Guyana team, Wane ‘Wiggy’ Dover has stated that the players put on a spirited performance.
The junior ‘Golden Jaguars’, a mixture of local and overseas based players, despite not playing together before the Guatemala encounter, were still able to hold off a much more oiled unit, in Guatemala.
It would have been a flawless first half in terms of goals had Guyana not conceded on the stroke of half time, but even with that, Dover believes that the lads did well and will improve with three more matches still to play.
”Generally I thought we give a spirited effort, we started the game with a particular plan to sit in position three and absorb the pressure that we knew they would have applied and play off the counter attack. As you would have seen, in 44 minutes we would have done that well and during that period we had two decent opportunities that we should have turned into goal scoring chances but unfortunately we did not control the ball well in the box and the chances went a begging.”
The second half Dover recapped, they were hoping for a repeat of the first half resilience as well as creating chances to bring some pressure to the Guatemalans which played well, moving the ball around fluently.
”But we saw some of our players showing some signs of being distant as they gave up lots of space to the opponent that resulted in us being further punished with three more goals. However, at the end of the day I think, the fact that Guatemala is one of the better teams in the Concacaf region, Guyana has still demonstrated that we can compete and if we stick to the game plan and be disciplined throughout the game we can get good results playing against the top nations. We will continue to work and hope for the best as we go forward.”
Meanwhile, President of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Wayne Forde in an invited comment said that himself and everyone that were involved in the five weeks of preparation of the team are aware that the players are all capable of doing better and this is not to take anything away from Guatemala as they are top of the Concacaf food chain.
”I will leave it up to the Technical staff to analyse the reason (s) for the underperformance. We know that the travel was arduous, the integration period of the international players was short but while Football is a team sport, individual quality is essential and for whatever reason, even the players that we know are naturally gifted did not show up.
These Boys can do better and they will do better, if we cannot outclass an opponent, then we must fight to the final whistle. This is a tough group but it is not impossible to get good results, everyone has to believe this and work towards it. The first match was tough but let’s put that behind us and focus on the remaining assignments ahead of us,” Forde concluded.
Guyana’s next match would be on Tuesday against the Cayman Islands from 10:30hrs.
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