“Toughest tournament I’ve played in my 30 years of coaching” GDF boss

“Toughest tournament I’ve played in my 30 years of coaching” GDF boss – Joseph ‘Bill’ Wilson

Jan 06, 2022 Sports

By Calvin Chapman

Kaieteur News – As many predicted, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) football club successfully defended their GFF-K&S Super 16 yearend title after beating Western Tigers 5-4 via kicks from the penalty mark in the final, but according to their head Coach, Joseph ‘Bill’ Wilson, the 2021 tournament was his toughest competition since his coaching career began way back in 1986.
However, the experienced coach shared with Kaieteur Sport that he anticipated a tough competition and he prepared his players well.

Joseph ‘Bill’ Wilson

More specifically, Wilson shared that, “We played back to back games in Linden and the MSC (Mackenzie Sports Club) ground was not up to standard, and we had to tune our tactics down to suit the conditions.”
“The games against both Linden teams were overly aggressive, and those that have been around local football for a while will know that it’s never easy beating Linden at home.”
However, the coach prepared for that, he mentioned that he had his troops doing a lot of conditioning leading up to the final, not only physical but also psychological since he was quite aware of the added pressure on champions to emulate past success.
GDF seemed to absorb the pressure time after time and the first match was very nervy against the combined Upper Demerara side, it was deadlocked 0-0 until extra time, but the eventual champions, GDF, scored after the Linden based team were down to nine-men.
Coach Wilson praised his side for showing great character because although he would’ve prepared them both mentally and physically, they still had to go out and execute on the field. During the interview with this publication, he joked that the team has been behind throughout the entire competition and they were in great danger of being eliminated against Milerock, Den Amstel and in the final they trailed Western Tigers for 20 minutes.
In addition, they played back to back matches, and thrice featured in extra-time clashes, all of which Coach Bill explained he anticipated, and prepared his squad for.
He also anticipated penalties and revealed that the coaching staff had the squad go through countless penalty drills, and that coupled with the positive atmosphere, allowed the players to succeed.

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