IT WILL not be an easy task coming up against the home team in the final group game of the CFU/CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying Under-17 game this evening at the Hasely Crawford in Port of Spain, Trinidad, but head coach of Guyana’s Junior Jaguars, Sampson Gilbert, is backing his charges to prevail. The talk around is that the T&T side will be gunning for some sort of revenge since it was Guyana’s Golden Jaguars, the senior team, that knocked them out of the senior World Cup Qualifying campaign on that memorable day 11.11.11 at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence.
The young Soca Warriors have been the dominant team so far in this group having won both their games to date against the BVI and Suriname.
And while that is so, coach Gilbert said that he is backing his charges to hold their own against the T&T side before what is expected to be a hostile home crowd this evening.
“In preparation for the tournament we always knew that exposure would have been one of the areas we would have been lacking in. In the first game although we played well tactically, we showed some nerves and even though we were able to equalise after Suriname scored, a bit more exposure would have seen us doing even better.”
Gilbert notes that in the game against the BVI they were able to execute better in terms of their finishing and being more confident as a team.
“We changed the formation of the team to achieve a more attacking style and it paid off. In my capacity as head coach and the staff, we think that going forward there’s a lot that we can achieve and this game against Trinidad we are looking forward to a better performance overall.”  Game time is 19:00hrs today.