TWENTY seven-year old skipper of the Golden Jaguars set-up Christopher Ronald Nurse, known as “Captain Courageous” among his teammates, has issued a very passionate rallying cry to his team mates and the general football loving public in assessing the national team’s 2-0, friendly international defeat at the hands of Central American unit Guatemala, at Providence Stadium last Wednesday evening. The English based skipper has played 12 games for the Jaguars since making his debut in 2008.
Speaking to the Golden Jaguars Media, Nurse encouraged fans not to be negative about the team’s prospects going forward despite losing their first major international fixture, since the historic victory against the “Soca Warriors”, last November.
He highlighted the amount of notable foreign based players that were missing, while echoing a recent comment from Coach Jamaal Shabaaz , that it was chance to test out the local players at this high level going into the third round qualifiers in summary.
“Firstly I’d like to say a big thank you and show appreciation to the fans who braved the weather conditions to come to the stadium for the game.
This represented true dedication to the team and for your love of the game, and for that, on behalf of the players I would like to say thank you”, said Nurse in praising the fans that turned out for the Guatemala game.
He continued: “In regards to the game, of course every game we aim to win, a loss is never the desired result, however, with the bigger picture in mind, and Wednesday’s result was not all so bad.
Without making excuses, there is most certainly room for improvement in the performance and there were seven (7) influential first team players missing, players returning from injury and gaining match fitness, along with youngsters gaining first team experience.
There will be many more national team friendlies before the World Cup Qualifiers and we may not be victorious in all of them, some of them I hope yes. However this is not reason to become negative and lose faith in this team or in this mission.”
As aforementioned, Nurse reiterated recent comments from Shabazz about the result of the game not being the more important factor at this stage of the team’s development ahead the qualifiers against CONCACAF powerhouses Mexico and Costa Rica:
“Taking all these factors into consideration, it’s clear to say the future for Guyana is very bright, as things can only get better over the coming months.
Returning players will strengthen the team substantially, Guyana has a small pool of players and when influential players i.e. the Cort brothers (defender Leon and striker Carl) are missing, Kayode Mckinnon, Vurlon Mills, Dwain Jacobs, Chris Bourne, it will inevitably affect the structure and play of the team. However given this we will avoid to make excuses.
The young players gaining experience Trayon Bobb etc, can only benefit from having played 90 minutes against a team of Guatemala’s caliber.
These games need to be played to give players match experience, improve the fitness of the team, training is one thing, but the players need games to improve fitness, so three months from now when the big tournament arrives players can give the best accounts of themselves.
So try to observe the game from a wider view of what this team could potentially become rather than focus on the end result of this one game.
It gave the coach a chance to observe new and returning players, try different formations and establish and highlight weaknesses, all which are important to establish now rather than in 3 months time.”, Nurse explained.
No one will lead you to believe Guyana has “arrived” as a football nation, but we are on the way and heading in the right direction, and it is only a matter of time.
We are a work in progress but believe you me we will arrive. There is a famous quote ” if you are not present in my struggle, do not expect to be present in my success”. Success never arrives without hard work and adversity. Guyana’s golden jaguars will be successful, albeit within the next 6 months or the next 18 months, this team will Roar.
For those who did not see the game, it would be easy to see or hear the result and become engulfed in conversations of negativeness. As I heard one person say: “Golden Jaguars took lickz”, then he was asked if he was at the game… answer was “NO.” These negative voices are what is holding back the development for success.
We hit a bump in the road and instead of remaining focused and mentally strong we want to beat ourselves down along with the people around us and condemn ourselves to a process that does not breed success.
These are the times when true soldiers stand tall and show stronger support, courage and strength to accept a knock and move forward, not face a difficult time and begin to drift aside or disassociate themselves.
I challenge all and everyone in association with Guyana and the Golden Jaguars to remain positive amongst the sight of adversity. The players were told to take time to reflect on the game, take the positives, which there were plenty of, establish the weaknesses, be it fitness, communication, control and go out through the week and work on improving these aspects, for that is where success will be gained.
It is about how you react to failure, how you react to a defeat, do you give up and become negative and lose faith or do you show more support, work harder, and believe in yourself more to achieve your goal.
I challenge all Guyanese people including the players  to remain strong and united throughout this whole process, disengage the negative voice and replace it with the positive constructive voice. Instead of ‘I Can’t or I won’t or I will never, change the mindset to ‘I can and I will,’ we can and we will’. The team needs the support of the public to achieve these goals.
On route to this stage in Barbados, I was confronted by my Guyanese people in Barbados, after we had defeated Barbados 2-0 and their words to me were “well done but you will never beat Trinidad”. I couldn’t believe this was the support being given from our own people. I told the players about this, and we used it as extra motivation to go and beat Trinidad and prove the doubters wrong.
Guyana has talent, it is simply a matter of putting the correct systems and structures in place to consistently be able to play and perform at the highest level, and  I believe we are steadily heading in the right direction. There have been a lot of steps forward.
It was a welcome return to have John Paul “JP” Rodrigues back in the team, who will no doubt be a great benefit to the squad for the World Cup Qualifiers.
Remain strong and positive, show your support for the team in voice, in action, whatever way you can support this team to go on and achieve greatness. Regardless if you like football or not this is Guyana. Let’s show strength in numbers and a united front to all around the globe that we can be victorious, but you have to believe.”