Concacaf Gold Cup Preliminary Round competition

Jun 17, 2021 Sports

Maintaining belief despite an uphill task – Forde

By Franklin Wilson

Recognising that Guyana’s ‘Golden Jaguars’ would have had the toughest possible luck in the region when the Concacaf Gold Cup Preliminary round draw was held with Guatemala being the first hurdle which must be crossed, Guyana Football Federation (GF) President Wayne Forde says that maintaining belief in the team is important.
Guyana earned its second successive qualification to the flagship tournament in Concacaf by virtue of its performance in the 2019-20 Concacaf Nations League when it ended 2nd in Group C, League B to Jamaica.

GFF President Wayne Forde addressing players and Technical Staff at the GFF National Training Centre in March, 2021. (Franklin Wilson photo)

Guyana ended on 10 points (3 wins 1 draw 2 losses), Jamaica won with 16 points (5 wins 1 draw), Antigua & Barbuda 9 points (3 wins 3 losses) while Aruba lost all six matches. The matches were played home and away.
Forde, responding to questions posed by members of the Media at a Press Conference held at the GFF National Training Centre on Tuesday reminded that on debut at the 2019 tournament, Guyana opened against the defending champions USA, eventually going down 0-4 on June 18.
“I think our performance was credible as it was throughout the tournament. Having to work our way through Guatemala to get to the round of 16 is also going to be an uphill task. But I think we have to maintain belief in the players, in the team.”
Forde noted that the GFF was hoping for the team to have more momentum going into the Guatemala fixture which is set for July 3 next but that would not be the case but a positive posture would have to be maintained.
Providing Guyana gets past Guatemala on July 3rd, a possible date with either Bahamas or Guadeloupe awaits on July 6th.
Speaking to the issue of finances to take care of the SMNT as well as the Senior Women’s and Under-17 teams who would all be competing this year, Forde noted that whilst it’s an uphill task for the Federation, they will continue to work with the Government of Guyana and its corporate partners.
“This time around the government of Guyana through the Minister made a generous contribution to the team’s qualification campaign and we will continue to make those efforts. We’ve also done a fairly good job when we did our budgeting for the 2021 cycle, so while we do need the support in many ways we’ve been able to make the necessary provisions to fund the programmes ahead of us.”