The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) on Tuesday announced a 26-member team that will seek to keep Guyana’s FIFA World Cup 2019 dreams alive.
The team will come up against four other Caribbean countries in their group for the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Caribbean Women’s qualifiers, slated for May 23-25 at the Leonora Stadium on the West Coast of Demerara.
The Guyanese team, featuring talents from clubs in Guyana, Canada, USA, England and Singapore, are listed in Group E, along with Barbados, Bermuda and neighbouring Suriname.
GFF President, Wayne Forde; Director of Guyana Carnival, Kerwin Bollers; and GFF Technical Director, Ian Greenwood, at the press briefing on Tuesday
Although admitting that their opponents will be tough to beat, Lady Jags Technical Director Ian Greenwood expressed confidence in the team.
“We also have to stress that these players are in our merit, as opposed to being tokens that are coming along for the ride. We have players who can start in international fixtures; they’ve proved that. We’re very confident in terms of what we’re putting together,” Greenwood stated.
The Guyana squad consists of: Taylor White (G), Natalie Nedd (G), Aneesa O’Brien (G), Sasha James, Odessa Romeo, Nikita Persaud, Sydney Cummings, Brianne DeSouza, Alicia Zaban, Allison Heydron, Collette Hope, Brittany Persaud, Miriam El-Masri, Tiandi Smith, Jade Vyphuis, Ghilene Joseph, Lakeisha Pearson, Horicia Adams, Brianna Desa, Hannah Baptiste, Calaigh Copland, Ashlee Savona, Annalisa Vincent, Cameo Hazelwood, Jalade Trim and Otesha Charles.
Meanwhile, to add a little spice to the qualifiers, the GFF have announced that they have entered into a partnership with the Hits and Jams Entertainment that would see the event becoming a part of the Guyana Carnival’s roster of activities.
Director of Guyana Carnival, Kerwin Bollers, shared the reasoning behind the initiative. He said, “When we heard about what the GFF was doing, we thought that it was a perfect opportunity to partner with them, especially based on the fact that they have teams that will be coming in from across the Caribbean to participate.”
Describing the occasion as an opportunity to expose the other players to Guyana’s culture, Bollers disclosed that a special package would be available to them, should they want to participate in the Guyana Carnival.
“We had some conversation with Mr. [Wayne] Forde and his team, and one of the things that we came up with is to offer some discount packages to those persons who will be coming to Guyana for the football,” he said. The qualifying action will kick-off on May 23 with Guyana coming up against Bermuda. Guyana will face Suriname on May 25, and Barbados on May 27.
Should Guyana end at the top of their group, the team would join the other first place winners in a battle to see which three teams will travel to the USA. That competition will run from August 25 to September 2.
Those top three teams will travel to Edinburgh and to Frisco in Texas to participate in the 2018 CONCACAF Women’s Championships which will qualify three teams for the FIFA 2019 Women’s World Cup in France.
