THE USA’s Major League Soccer (MLS) Super Star Dwayne De Rosario is expected to arrive in Guyana today to conduct a coaching clinic with 52 children between the ages of 10 and 18 years at the Mackenzie Sports Club ground in Linden tomorrow. 

De Rosario, who has Guyanese parentage, has never visited Guyana and has expressed his delight to not only make his maiden voyage to the Land of Many Waters, but also impart his knowledge of the game to the youths of the Mining Town.
He plays with Toronto Football Club and is said to be the face of the MLS, having won the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) and Golden Boot in 2011, Goal of the Year for 2004 and 2005, MLS Cup Most Valuable Player (2001, 2007), Toronto FC Player-of-the-Year (2009), Canadian Player-of-the-Year (2005, 2006, 2007, 2011) and Canadian Championship Golden Boot (2009 and 2010).
Tomorrow’s clinic is hosted by the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation in conjunction with another overseas-based Guyanese Garth Nelson and according to Kashif Muhammad, they are extremely happy to have the Canadian as part of their plan for youth football and their tournament.
“It’s an honour for us to have Dwayne De Rosario here and we know that the kids will also embrace him and accept his knowledge that he would be looking to impart. I think this is great for children to have a top flight professional player here in Guyana and I must say that we are welcome to host him,” said Muhammad.
He also mentioned that this is “part of what we at the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation had planned for our school’s tournament and we teamed up with Garth Nelson of the USA to actually make this happen”
In an invited comment from his home in New York, Nelson who also hails from Linden said he had actually thrown out the idea to have De Rosario in Guyana to the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) but mediation fell through and as such, Kashif and Shanghai stepped up to make it happen.
“What we wanted to do really is make it a longer stint where he can actually spend some more time with the kids, but I think what he is more excited about is returning to the home of his parents and seeing the kids play in the school tournament. He’s presently in Trinidad doing the same thing that he’s going to be doing in Linden,” Nelson said.
Nelson added that while De Rosario has never visited Guyana, he speaks with a deep Guyanese accent.
“He’s really deep with his Guyanese culture and this is because of his parents and family who are all Guyanese so he knows everything about Guyana but never really got a chance to visit because playing football is all he does basically.”
De Rosario is also Canada’s all-time leading goalscorer and he is the only player in MLS history to score 20 league goals for four different clubs.

(By Rawle Toney)