Foreign Coaches aiding in development of local counterparts

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) and Racing Madrid has brought a trio of experienced Coaches to the National Boys’ U17 team this year.

However, Head Coach Marco Bonofiglio, Strength and Conditioning Coach Ahjton Roberts and Performance Analyst/Sports Science expert Dr Steve Gennaro are doing more than just preparing Guyana’s team for the CONCACAF U17 Qualifiers next month.
Dr Gennaro, during an invited comment with media operatives, divulged that the visiting Coaches are hoping to impart best practices so as to develop Guyana’s local coaches.
“The best way to develop players is to develop coaches. Coach education is the number one form of player development,” Dr Gennaro shared during a training session for the U17 boys’ national team.

He went on to divulge, “What we want is the Coaches who are here to be able to observe and to share ideas. It’s really about a collaboration of ideas. So, we’re sharing some of the session plans, session designs, how we go about building sessions. We’re inviting all the Coaches in the GFF to come and attend and we have conversations before the training sessions, during and after the sessions with them, just again a collaboration of knowledge and the sharing of ideas.
“In particular, on our staff as well, there’s a great collaboration between the international Coaches and the domestic Coaches as well. Working together to ensure that even after this tournament ends, a lot of the best practices that we’ve experienced over multiple decades of coaching around the world in professional and national environments, that those can remain here in Guyana with the Guyana-born Coaches while they lead the next generation of Guyana’s football players.”
Quizzed about whether or not they will be continuing the initiative, Dr Gennaro revealed an intention to do so on future visits, but expressed hope of making an impact on the players and coaches immediately.
Dr Gennaro explained, “The intention is always there for prolonged relationships. Obviously, Coach Bonofiglio, myself, Coach Ash, we’re very happy here, we love the people, we love the players, we love the culture, we love the food. So, we’re quite happy to spend as much time here as we can, but eventually it needs to be something that the local Coaches themselves take ownership of and are able to activate themselves.
“We’ll do everything we can on this visit or any future visits that are organised to come and be a part, but we definitely want to impact this and future generations of football players in Guyana,” the performance analyst asserted.
The national U17 team have been encamped for two weeks and will continue being encamped up until they kick off their U17 Qualifiers campaign on February 7.