It was a twist for the ages in the 2025 final when Dolphin Secondary’s defences managed to hold on against a relentless attack from Chase’s Academic Foundation to win the Massy Under-18 Secondary School Football tournament.
Chase’s Academy, who had been missing their main talisman Bryan Wharton in that encounter, went home with a second-place trophy and their egos bruised.
The loss soon became insignificant, as the team went on to win the Republic Bank U18 League and became the first two-time KFC Goodwill International tournament champions.
However, the Chase’s Academy camp is keen to return to the summit with both manager Oronde Chase and player Tyrell Walcott exuding confidence.
Chase told this publication exclusively, “Yeah, of course, if it is that we are the regional champions for KFC, we don’t expect any local teams to give us any problems going forward. So, I’m just urging all the other teams, letting them know to expect nothing short of a fight.”
“Nobody can jug we again,” the manager asserted.
On the other hand, Walcott expressed, “Last year, we didn’t get the results that we wanted. You know, it hurt us to know that we were confident in winning, so this year we’re doing serious preparation, and we expect to win.”
Chase went on to share what fans can expect from the Chase’s Academy team in the upcoming competition.
“So, in 2025, coming off of the second-place, runner-up position in the Milo [now Massy], we’ve been able to transition and go on with the younger team; win the Exxon and then later on in the year, Republic Bank and the KFC. So, coming into 2026, we have the same set of players. What we’re looking to do now is to actually implement a tactical side to the players. We already have techniques down, so we’re looking forward now to having a team system to continue to dominate school football in Guyana,” Chase explained.
He went on to share about the team’s composition: “You can expect to see a lot more youngsters being incorporated due to our fifth formers focusing more on CSEC. So, we have a lot of guys that would’ve played Exxon [Under-14] last year, now playing this year and introduced into the core team. You’ll see a much younger team, fresher faces and a better style of football.”
Meanwhile, for Walcott the competition will be about revenge and representing well as national players.
“Yeah, revenge, not only for me but for the team, ‘cause when we lost, everybody was like ‘what, ya’ll make Dolphin beat ya’ll’. That kind of tempted us, like we wanted revenge, and we’re not just going out there for revenge alone; we’re going out to compete and play good football,” the defender admitted.
He further noted, “I am confident because most of us are national players. We are expected to play quality football, and we know that we will go out there and execute and come out victorious.”
The Massy U18 tournament will kick off on Saturday, March 21, at the Queen’s College Ground in Georgetown. The teams will be competing for a $300,000 grand prize that will be allocated to a school project of their choice. The second- and third-place teams will receive $200,000 and $100,000 for the same purpose.
32 teams from Regions One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, and 10 will be competing across eight groups in the initial round-robin stage before moving on to the knockouts.
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