Mixture of foreign & local blend in Lady Jags’ squad

Twenty players from the National Senior Women’s team, commonly referred to as the “Lady Jags”, have been shortlisted to represent Guyana in the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Women’s Challenge Series Tournament, scheduled for April 23 – 30 in Trinidad and Tobago.
The squad consists of two Goalkeepers, five Defenders, nine Midfielders and four Forwards from both the Guyana and International-based pool of players.
The announcement was made on Saturday at a team meeting held for the Guyana-based players by Akilah Castello, newly-appointed Assistant Coach. Also present at the meeting were Ian Greenwood, Technical Director and Eon De Viera, the Guyana-based Goalkeeping Coach.

“The coaching staff is looking forward to these exhibition matches to build cohesion as well as to assess playing strengths of the team,” said Head Coach, Dr. Ivan Joseph.
“We are looking forward to the Challenge Series and have the “Lady Jags” back on the pitch and compete in a high level environment. Our goal is to use this tournament as a building block to prepare our team for the first round matches of the CONCACAF Women’s Qualifiers in May”, he added.

Dr. Joseph said the team will use the opportunity for structured team building: “This is the first step in our goal to qualify for the CONCACAF finals in October. We have many new faces on the team as well as new staff and in order to perform at our best in the coming months, we must ensure that we are all on the same page. Therefore, while we will use the tournament as a training environment to assess our players, it is also an opportunity for the team to get some much needed time together to build a game plan and structure that will help us succeed.”
International Women’s Team Coordinator, Paul Beresford, said the squad is young but exposure is key as the team prepares for the CONCACAF Women’s Qualifiers scheduled for next month.
“The GFF will be using the CFU Women’s Challenge Series to give some much needed exposure to our younger players. Given the limited time we had to prepare for the tournament and with CONCACAF qualifiers happening next month, it was important that we manage the availability of our Guyana and Internationally-based players to ensure we put the right squad into each event. I am excited to see the re-launch of the “Lady Jags” programme.”
Guyana has been placed in Group E of the five-group tournament with Suriname and Grenada and will have its first match against Grenada on April 25at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Trinidad beginning at 16:00h. Their second match is scheduled for the 27th at 16:00h against Suriname and will face host Trinidad and Tobago on the 29th at 17:30h.
The format includes four teams placed in five groups. The matches in each group will be played in Round Robin format, each team playing one match against each of the other teams in the same group.