U-15 girls draw 1st CONCACAF development championship match

The Guyana U-15 girls’ national team drew 2-2 with their Turks and Caicos Islands counterparts on Sunday in their first game of the League B group stage of the CONCACAF Girls’ U-15 Championship, a developmental tournament taking place in Florida.
The innovative competition, designed to help all CONCACAF nations compete internationally against teams at a similar level of development to foster greater impact and improvement, brings together female national youth teams from across the region, including a guest team from Wales in the United Kingdom in League A.
“We are happy for the opportunity to have our next generation of female players participate in this CONCACAF development tournament,” said Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Assistant Technical Director Bryan Joseph. “The staff have been working hard at getting the team ready both here and in North America.”
Seventeen players were selected for the Guyana squad, which features nine domestic-based players, including up and coming stars from Kamarang, Santos, Fruta Conquerors, Guyana Police Force, Swan and Orealla football clubs. The squad is being coached by Delon Williams with Lady Jags stalwart Kayla DeSouza as his Assistant Coach and her international team-mate Natalie Nedd on goalkeeping coaching duties.
“The ongoing Blue Water U-15 tournament really afforded us the opportunity to scout new talent into the national set-up and we are very excited by what we’ve been able to find,” Joseph added. “We want to be able to manage the expectations of this group of young ladies, especially since they are at the beginning of their international careers, but we also want to see good performances from the entire group over the course of the competition.”
The GFF has partnered with Danish logistics firm Blue Water Shipping to launch Guyana’s first U-15 nationwide league for girls this year – a landmark step in increasing participation across the country and developing young female talent.
Drawn in League B of the CONCACAF tournament, Guyana will now face the Cayman Islands today, August 1 at the Hillsborough County Tournament Sportsplex in Tampa, and then Nicaragua on August 3. The winners of each group plus the runners-up from League B will advance to the semi-final stage in the second tier of the tournament.