Spirited Golden Jags ready for League ‘A’ pressure

Following an unblemished campaign in League ‘B’ of the 2023/2024 CONCACAF Nations League, Guyana’s senior men’s national team, the Golden Jaguars, would play their first match of League ‘A’ on Thursday, having been rewarded with promotion to that league for their hard work.
The Golden Jaguars, having begun intensive training as a team this week, would be facing off against neighbouring Suriname in two days’ time. Quizzed about the atmosphere in the Golden Jaguars camp, Head Coach Jamaal Shabazz has said it “can’t be better”.
“This team has been together — the majority of the players in the squad — for the better part of two years, so there’s good camaraderie. Of course, there’s guys competing for spots, but, generally, I think the group feeling is strong. We all know what it will take to stay in League ‘A’, or to even qualify out of League ‘A’ to go to the Quarterfinal stage, and it brings a tremendous responsibility. So, in terms of the group feeling and the camaraderie, I think it can’t be better,” Shabazz told a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

Making their League ‘A’ debut at home would be a tall task for the Golden Jaguars, and according to Assistant Coach Wayne Dover, handling that pressure well would be important.
Dover shared, “The pressure of playing at home has always been an immense situation for us as a staff, and given the fact that we have not played at home for quite a while now, returning at a different level than we’ve been playing at, it will generate some amount of pressure, not only to deliver the results, (but) to actually put the best possible team out there to get the results.
“We’re [staff] gonna do our diligence in terms of how we arrive with the best team to give a good result (in order) to take that pressure away and at least give the fans something that they haven’t received for a while in Guyana,” Assistant Coach Dover added.
The Golden Jaguars roster has one new addition in Middlesbrough FC’s Isaiah Jones, whom Shabazz believes would bring a lot to the team.
Shabazz has said about the new face in the team, “Early days. He had one session with us, (but) you can see he definitely will bring a lot in terms of his talent, his experience playing on the championship division in the UK, and we expect a lot from him. However, he’s coming in to a unit that’s already been organized, and, you know, it’s a matter of both him and us making adjustments so that we can gel properly. But certainly, we feel that he can add something to the group, and we’re really happy to have him.”
The first whistle in the Guyana-Suriname clash would be sounded at 16:00hrs at the National Track and Field Center (NTFC) at Edinburgh, West Coast Demerara on Thursday.