AS GUYANA’S national male football team, more known as the Golden Jaguars, prepares for their CONCACAF FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, the country has recently been rocked by some dreaded news administratively but head coach Wayne ‘Wiggy’ Dover said that his side will not be distracted by the happenings. On the local scene, the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) and its affiliate, the Georgetown Football Association (GFA) are presently in High Court as the latter fights for the rights to be constitutionally a member of the GFF.
And the recent shocker came when long serving GFF president Colin Klass was banned for 26 months by the sports world governing body FIFA, after the Ethics Committee ruled he had breached their Code of Ethics for his part in the scandal that also led to the lifetime ban for Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam following a meeting of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) in May.
The Golden Jaguars will face Barbados in the Land of the Flying Fish on October 7th and yesterday, Dover told Chronicle Sports that “as administrators and coaches, we try our best to not have them think about all that has been happening around us. I know that it’s not something we can erase, it’s there but our focus right now is coming out on top of our group.”
Guyana, along with Trinidad and Tobago, holds the distinction of being the only two undefeated teams in ‘Group-B’ of the qualifiers and with that, Dover said they are making sure it remains a priority ”it stays that way”.
“We’re going to Barbados with the aim of making sure we have a clean slate for when we face Trinidad for the final show down later on. The thing is, we are not saying that the other teams (Trinidad and Bermuda) are not good enough to beat us, because this is football and anything could happen. But we expect the challenge to be from Trinidad because now, they have a better team than the last time we met” said Dover.
Meanwhile, the dreadlocked coach mentioned that the entire team will be together from Saturday as he expects the overseas contingent to start arriving as soon as mid-week.
“I have about 12 local players here and the others will start coming down soon because we have a lot of work to do with the team before we go to Barbados and we all saw how things were with us in the last game we played so, we have a lot of work to do. The guys asked for some time together before we go to Barbados and we have to make sure that happens” Dover noted.
Asked about what are the main areas they (coaching staff) will focus on, he said “From the last game we saw a number of areas like our strikers needing to learn how to finish and to tidy up on the defending a little along with tightening up our midfield plays as well”.
Though Guyana came out victorious in both of their matches, their performances was nothing to cheer about and it was acknowledged by the team’s Technical Director Jamaal Shabaaz who along with Dover in various sections of the media, shed his disappointment at the team’s showing but said they will enhance their play.
Asked to comment on the importance of making sure a reoccurrence of their two games does not occur, Dover said “I’ll be honest, we are very far from what this team is capable of doing and I know all these guys we have are professionals and the good thing is that they too recognized that, so I know they will push themselves to do whatever it takes for us to reach our peak and they are committed to doing that”.
The team is presently training at the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sports ground on Carifesta Avenue under the watchful eyes of Dover and the other local coaching staff, with preparations slated to heat up on the arrival of the overseas based players.