By Joe Chapman

THE Guyana Men’s Beach Football team left these shores on Monday afternoon for Argentina where they will compete from today in the South American Beach Games Beach Football tournament. Among their opponents are hosts Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay.

Looking back from whence they came, Hamid said that the Guyana Beach Football Association was inspired by Mr Rollin Tappin, its past president, who had a passion to see beach football develop.

The coach noted that “in 2015 we started putting a beach football team together to select some players and we went to Trinidad and played in that tournament. The first year we brought fourth. Then the next year in 2016 we went back and brought third”.
With these encouraging signs Hamid recalled “after then we said that we will keep at it and we felt that it is likely that Guyana can do well in this sport, as it was a smaller version of football.”

The national team trained daily at the beach soccer field at Bayrock over the past three weeks, Hamid reported.
He continued: “Then in 2016 our intentions were to go to a World Cup qualifier but we were unable to do so. But we ended up going to the World Cup qualifier in 2017 in The Bahamas where Guyana did fairly well. But before going there, we had travelled to Barbados where we brought third.”

Looking back, Hamid said: “So in the whole process of the game’s development, the players were learning more, and were exposed further to the international level and getting a chance to go to the South America Beach Games is pretty good because we are seeing teams like Colombia, Brazil, Chile , Paraguay and Honduras. Those are the big teams, the power-playing nations in beach football.

“It is a plus for us getting to see these countries play and maybe try to mimic some of what they do, bringing it back and enhancing the game here. It is a challenge for us, but we hope that this can be a success and we can see the game advance as it should.”

Looking at the previous make-up of the players from previous teams Hamid informed: “We don’t have much change to the 2017 team, even though we lost one of the players from that squad – a good defensive player who passed away last year.

“So we included one striker in Shane Haynes, a young player who got the best goal in the 2017 World Cup qualifier. His brother, who is an attacking forward, is now being included in the squad.

“We are young; one of youngest three teams going into this tournament, and it is a matter of how we adjust and apply ourselves in dealing with the conditions to go forward.

Reflecting on what occurred when Guyana played in the World Cup Qualifiers in The Bahamas a proud coach Hamid reminded that “we had to beat a team by seven goals and we fell short by one goal, scoring six goals. If we had won that game we would have made it to the final eight in 2017.”

The National Beach Football team is coached by Abdulla Hamid and managed by Dwallon Farrell.
The full team is Kenard Simon, Cordel Johnson, Jamal Haynes, Jermaine Grandison, Michael Wilson, Deshawn Joseph, Shane Haynes, Jashawn Moore, Trevor Archibald and Ethan Sparman.

The competition runs from March 20 to March 25 according to coach Abdulla Hamid.