Home Sports Guyana drawn in Group A of CONCACAF Olympic Qualifier
Guyana is now aware of who their opponents will be when they enter the CONCACAF Men’s Olympic Qualifier in July. The Caribbean tournament will pave the way for Guyana’s Olympic 2020 dreams to be realised.
After the draw in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday morning, Guyana has found themselves in Group A with St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica and Caribbean football powerhouse, Jamaica.
The four group tournament will run from April 17-21, with two Caribbean teams advancing to the CONCACAF qualifying championship.
The format of the Caribbean version of qualifying will see the top teams from every group at the end of the round robin stage advancing to compete in a final play-in match (1A v 1D and 1B v 1C). The winners of those two play-in matches will then go on to compete in the CONCACAF Men’s Olympic qualifying championship.
If Guyana is to reach this stage, they will meet three teams from the Central American version of the competition and the North American representatives, Mexico, Canada and the USA.
Central America’s qualifying (which will take place during the first three weeks of July) format will see six participating teams – Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua and Guatemala – competing in three individual home-and-away series. The three series winners will then earn their spot in the CONCACAF Men’s Olympic qualifying championship. The match-ups will be set, 1 v 6, 2 v 5 and 3 v 4, and positions will be determined via the FIFA World Ranking as of March 31, 2019.
The tournament is said to be catered for Under-23 players and as such will give the spotlight to Guyana’s younger crop of local and internationally based players. Without a doubt the likes of Kelsey Benjamin and Jeremy Garrett are expected to grace the squad.
In addition, the Guyana Football Federation is set to launch their GFF-KFC National U20 Intra-Association Independence Cup. The impending tournament is currently scheduled for April 27 – May 20 with an Inter-regional play-off to follow. Given that the tournament is set for Under-20 players, one can expect that the shining stars at the end of the local tournament, will have a chance to make the national team cut.
Group B of the Caribbean qualifying stage consists of Barbados, Cuba and the US Virgin Islands. Group C features Haiti, Suriname, Grenada and Cayman Islands whilst Antigua and Barbuda, The Dominican Republic, St Lucia and Puerto Rico were drawn in Group D.