4th March, 2016; Georgetown: Guyana has moved six places up the FIFA Men’s world rankings to one hundred and fifty-six (156). This move came following the Golden Jaguars’ defeat of Suriname in the last International Friendly held in Guyana on 21st February, 2016.
President of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), Mr. Wayne Forde said that it is a very important step and is pleased with the move. He added that it is encouraging results for the new council; one that will be nurtured and built on in the coming months. “Moving five places in the FIFA sends a strong signal to the rest of the world. Every football nation pays attention to those rankings and this means a lot for Guyana’s image. When it’s said and done, what a country is really remembered for is how well they perform on the pitch. The time has come for Guyana to really demonstrate our prowess on the football pitch”
The Golden Jaguars have begun training for the upcoming Caribbean Football Union (CFU), Caribbean Cup Tournament Fixture against Anguilla, scheduled for the 22nd March, 2016, on the 1st March with the locally-based players under Assistant Coach Wayne Dover. However, President Forde indicated that the mechanism of calling teams close to tournaments will change. “The national coach has been instructed by me to bring the locally-based national players, together as often as possible in one-day camps. We have to move away from the situation we had in the past where national players come together a mere week before any serious engagement.
“I’d like to see the national coach and his assistant coach bring together all of our locally-based national players at a minimum once per month into a one-day camp when they get together one evening for some 4 – 6 hrs, they have some conversations as to what they’re doing, use some team-building techniques to get the guys develop some chemistry amongst themselves, run some practical drills, go through some technical aspects of the game; just create that environment so that the guys can spend time getting to know each other a lot better so whenever we are facing a competition, or a very important tournament, we are not hastily trying to pull the guys together.
We go through that team building process that we can actually be doing over the course of the entire year,” said Forde.
Notwithstanding, Forde noted that the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) will continue to invest heavily in both the male and senior setup because it is the goal of the GFF to have the Golden Jaguars become a very dominant force within the CFU. “…that’s our first target, that is, to be a dominant player within the CFU region. Guyana has been, for too many years, exiting tournaments in the very early stages. We are very confident that we will do exceptionally well in the upcoming CFU tournament…I have no doubt in my mind that we will prevail…I see Guyana doing exceptionally well in this tournament.”
The president remains optimistic of football development in Guyana and emphasized the need for corporate partnerships. “Guyana is, at this moment poised in taking football in a very positive and encouraging direction. The national setup is one that requires a lot of investment over the next couple of years and I am confident that if we receive the support from the corporate partners and the Government of Guyana (GoG) we can do much better than we have in the past. It’s very encouraging that we’ve used an exclusive, homegrown national team to compete against Suriname and the result spoke for itself.”
The national team will continue training under Head Coach Jamal Shabazz on Tuesday, March 8 and the following Tuesday, 15th March, 2016 from 18:00hrs – 20:00hrs at GDF Ground, Camp Ayanganna.