Concacaf Women’s U-20 Championship – Group A ‘Lady Jaguars’ aiming to place in the top two; first test is against Bermuda tonight

Jul 13, 2019 Sports

Guyana will open its quest for top group honours when the nation makes its debut in the Concacaf Women’s U-20 Championship this evening at the Leonora Track and Field Facility against probably the most experienced team of the group, Bermuda from 21:30hrs.

Under-20 ‘Lady Jags’ Head Coach Ivan Joseph flanked by Taylor White (left) and Lensey Adolph.

Group A play which will open at 19:30hrs with Suriname and St. Lucia battling each other also has Antigua and Barbuda in contention.
Head Women’s Coach of Guyana Seniors Women’s Team and the Under-20s Dr. Ivan Joseph is confident that given the challenges endured arriving at this final selection, his young charges would give a good account of themselves as they seek to make themselves and country proud.
“This is part of our rebuilding programme so we’ll be hopeful to look to place in the top two, to put forward what we’ll call momentum as we continue to build our programme. This is part of the, I think necessary foundation block for us to move forward to get more competitions.”
With regards to not selecting a captain or captains, Joseph said that his experience with coaching, especially women’s teams is that they are leader full and his strategy would be to delegate those responsibilities across the team rather than just giving one or two players those responsibilities.
“Part of our job as coaches is to make sure that we develop as many women’s leaders as we can and that’s

Ready for the Challenge! Representatives of four of the competing nations from right, Bermuda, St. Lucia, Guyana and Suriname.

the process of no captains.”
Coach Joseph who has been with the programme for just about one year now, said it has been a challenging job to arrive at a lineup that would be impactful given the fact that players are based in Guyana, Canada and the USA as well as him having so to do after seeing the players as a unit in just about one or two sessions.
Another challenge Joseph highlighted would be building a competitive chemistry as the starting X1 would be playing as a unit for the first time against the Bermudans having not had any warm up matches prior to this competition.
“Again, when resources are tight you have to do the best you can within the confinements of the tournament.” Sharing the head table with Joseph at yesterday’s Press Briefing at the Ramada Hotel were Taylor White (Goalkeeper) and Lensey Adolph, a Defender.
Trevor Anderson, Coach of the St. Lucia Team informed that their objective is to win the tournament and is looking forward to good football being played.
“I’m expecting as a team that they follow the objectives of the technical staff, that’s the goal we need to achieve. Some of the players were on the senior team, just about four of them, so it’s a mixture of senior and youth. The age group is between 17 to 20.”
Suriname’s aim here also is to qualify for the next round in first or second place, “Nothing less than that”, their Head Coach boasted.
Head Coach of the Bermuda Team, Nikita Robinson followed the same line of her coaching colleagues in that they are here to win the group and advance to the second round.
“This is a very young but experienced team, quite a few of these players have played in the U15, 17 and some at U20 level already. Quite a few have played against the USA as well so they know what it takes, they have been preparing very well for this so the coaches are very happy with the level that we’re at and the level we’re going to play at.”
Robinson noted that they have respect for all the opposing teams as all have been harbouring thoughts of winning the group but they {Bermuda} would be playing, “Our game and focus on the things that we have to do, we do it right, we would be successful.”
Its was also stated by Robinson that Bermuda is in a state of rebuilding, citing that the men’s team has had success as well as their Under15 and 17 teams in the past two years, “So this is the next step for us at U20,” she posited.

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