UNDER the guidance of technical director Claude Bolton and head coach Mark Rodrigues, Toronto, Canada played hosts to Guyana Football Federation’s (GFF) initial preparations for the upcoming Women’s Olympic Qualifiers. Guyana will be in Group Four in the Caribbean Zone of the 2015 Women’s Olympic Qualifiers, which will be hosted in St Kitts and Nevis, August 21-25, playing against the hosts and Cuba.
Having been successful against both countries in 2010, Guyana will now look to repeat their performance on August 21 when they face St Kitts and Cuba on August 25.
Group One will be hosted by Puerto Rico and fields Aruba, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Grenada. Group Two features St Lucia, Antigua & Barbuda, the Cayman Islands and Trinidad & Tobago, to be staged in Trinidad & Tobago.
The Group Three games will be played in Suriname and the teams in this group are Dominican Republic, Dominica and Jamaica.
While the tournament has an age limit of under-23 for men born on or after January 1, 1993, there is no age ceiling for the Women’s Qualifiers.
Three teams will advance from the female category into the CONCACAF Women’s Summer Olympic Tournament for 2016.
According to Rodrigues, “This is a short-term plan … TD Bolton has made quite clear that we must be innovative, calculating, and fiscally responsible as we venture into a competition that many are thinking we cannot possibly be ready for.”
The GFF’s Next Generation Project highlights that one of the facets of football that must be a priority in the development plan is Women’s Football and as such the Federation has already held two Women’s awareness sessions and participated in the CONCACAF Women’s Football Day with a 3-on-3 Tournament.
There are also plans for a Women’s Football conference that will be the prelude to a Women’s Development League to kick off later in 2015.
Rodrigues was quick to point out that as happened in the past, “this squad, in this competition, can be the impetus for all young women in Guyana to get out and realise the dream of playing football and playing for Guyana. That is what we want to be the legacy of this squad’s participation in this competition”.
The camp culminated with a competitive 1-1 result versus undefeated Ontario League 1 side Durham FC, which the Lady Jags took away with a penalty shoot-out victory.
Coach Rodrigues said, “I was pleasantly surprised; although, fitness levels are nowhere close to where they need to be, collectively we were a far better squad than I was expecting at this early stage. It was very promising and encouraging to give simple guidelines and responsibilities and have a majority of players adapt and execute.”
The head coach was also excited to inform that four of the highest calibre players available for selection will be joining the selection process in Guyana during the camp planned for mid-July where players will be taken through the rigours of a full camp that is hoping to include an international friendly.
Bolton said that the Women’s budget would not be exhausted on this team for this competition, as those limited funds have been committed to facilitate the projects in the Next Generation Project, including the commencement of the aforementioned Women’s Development League.
The GFF has made the decision to hold two assessment events, prior to the mid-July selection camp, to get a further overview of local female players.
However, this will best allow for the GFF to gauge the level of players that will be moving into the planned Development League.