Junior teams intensify preparations ahead of CFU, CONCACAF tournaments

Following the Guyana Senior team’s debut at the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Gold Cup last week, the focus of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) will now be shifted to Guyana’s youth teams, as they prepare for a string of international engagements over the next few months.

Given the close proximity of the looming tournaments, training for the various National teams will be intensified in the coming weeks, as the countdown to their participation in key Caribbean Football Union (CFU) and CONCACAF youth tournaments in the July – September window draws closer.
Guyana is scheduled to participate in six youth tournaments, as follows; CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Qualifiers: from 13th-21st July 2019, to be held in Guyana; preliminary Round of Men’s Under-23 Olympic Qualifiers (home & away matches): from 17th – 21st July 2019; CFU Girls’ Under-14: from 1st- 12th August 2019 (Group 5), to be held in the Dominican Republic; CONCACAF Under-15 Boys’ Championships: from 4th-12th August 2019, to be held at the IMG Academy; CONCACAF Under-17 Women’s Championships: from 21st – 25th August; and the Caribbean Football Union Boys’ Under-14: scheduled for September 2019.
Preparations, which began in May, saw teams engaged in a weekly schedule of training at the GFF National Training Centre at Providence.
“The preparation is taking the form of two weekly sessions for all the youth teams, utilising weekdays from 16:00hrs-18:00hrs; and weekends, when available, for an additional two hours,” said Bryan Joseph, GFF’s Youth Development Officer. “We have been implementing or applying the new strategy relative to how we prepare national teams, so we’re not doing short, compressed preparation anymore; we’re doing preparation over a longer period. While the number of sessions do not increase, what increases is the period of time that we are actually spending in preparing the groups,” Joseph added.
Commenting on the composition of the technical squad, Joseph said this is being led by the Technical Department.
“We haven’t yet been able to confirm the staff for the various groups, even though respective individuals have been identified and have been working with the various groups. There is some overlapping taking place, but as we get closer to tournament date and encampment, we’ll finalise the respective staff,” he has said.
Players are being taken from the various academy training centres (ATCs) as well as from scouting activities and from those identified by the various technical development officers (TDOs).
For the CONCACAF Women’s Under 20 Qualifiers, Guyana has been placed in Group ‘A’ along with Bermuda, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname and St. Lucia. Matches are scheduled for the National Track and Field Centreat Leonora (Guyana), and at the Warner Park in St. Kitts & Nevis.