Squad to be announced soon, says Head Coach Wayne Dover

CONCACAF U-20 Men’s Championships…

Head Coach of the National U20 Men’s Team, Wayne Dover, has said — after four weeks of training — that Guyana is ready to compete at the CONCACAF U20 Men’s Championships, scheduled for Nicaragua from February 15th to Feb 23, 2020.

Guyana has been placed in ‘Group A’ with St Vincent and the Grenadines, Montserrat, US Virgin Islands, and hosts Nicaragua.
“The National U20 Team has been engaged in intense preparation for the CONCACAF Men’s U20 World Cup Qualifiers (to be held) this month, and as such is ready to compete,” Dover said in an invited comment.
“Despite the expected competitive nature of the group, I’m optimistic we could qualify out of this group,” he added.
Guyana has had a total of 25 of these U20 players engaged in weekly sessions at the GFF’s National Training Centre at Providence, EBD. There have been some joint sessions of training with the Senior Men’s National Team.
“The training has been good since we started. There were a couple of sessions that were merged with the Senior National Team, and Coach Maximo took charge of those sessions with assistance from me and other U20 staff members. There was a big effort to focus on team organisation: how to attack, and how to defend,” Dover explained.
The groups for the first-round qualifying stage are listed below in the order drawn.
Group A: Nicaragua (ranked 20), Guyana (ranked 25), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (ranked 28), Montserrat (ranked 41) and US Virgin Islands (ranked 33rd).
Group B: the Dominican Republic (ranked 17th), Grenada (ranked 24th), Dominica (ranked 26th) and Anguilla (ranked 36th).
Group C: Curacao (ranked 19th), Guadeloupe (ranked 22nd), Belize (ranked 30th) and Saint Martin (ranked 32nd).
Group D: Bermuda (ranked 18th), Puerto Rico (ranked 21st), Cayman Islands (ranked 27th) and Barbados (ranked 31st).
After round-robin play, the top finisher in each of the groups would advance directly to the knockout stage of the competition (third round).
The second round of the competition would also be played in a group format between the top ranked 16 participating teams (according to the CONCACAF Under 20 Ranking as of June 2019). For this round, the teams have been divided into four groups of four.
After round-robin play, the top three finishers of each group would advance to the knockout stage of the competition. The knockout stage of the competition (round-of-16, quarterfinal, semifinal and final) will be played in June of 2020 in a host country yet to be announced.

Match schedule:
MATCH 1: 15th February at 17:30hrs – Guyana vs Montserrat
MATCH 2: 17th February at 17:30hrs – St. Vincent & the Grenadines vs Guyana
MATCH 3: 21st February at 20:30hrs – US Virgin Islands vs Guyana
MATCH 4: 23rd February at 20:30hrs – Nicaragua vs Guyana