THE Guyana National Football team, dubbed the ‘Golden Jaguars’ are set to roar against St Lucia on March 22 at the Guyana National Stadium and, according to head coach Jamaal Shabazz, his charges are aiming for a ‘good result’. The clash between the two countries marks the return of the international football to these shores since the Golden Jaguar’s 2014 World Cup campaign.

Shabazz who recently signed a two-year deal with the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) had stated that the friendly will be used to expose the country’s younger talent, but at the same time, losing is not an option.
The ‘Jags’ held their first practice at the Police Sports Club ground, Eve Leary and Shabazz posited, “Of course we want to have good results; a good result is always the first priority on the agenda, but we also want to build a national team over a period of two years that will brand itself back to the kind of team we had in the past and even try to do better.”
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step and it’s not going to be an easy process.” Shabazz said, adding, “Always giving players international exposure is a tedious process and we’ve got to be mindful, because the results don’t always come the way we would like.”
The session on Wednesday, Shabazz said was to put the players’ mind in the game since Guyana had also secured an International Friendly against Grenada on March 29.
Several Under-23 players and a core group of local players will be used for the game against St Lucia while the likes of Brandon Beresford and Jamaal Smith from North America and some from the Trinidad and Tobago Professional League will join the team for their Grenada encounter.
Derrick Carter, Joshua Brown, King Solomon Austin, Colin Nelson, Dwain Jacob, Clive Nobrega, Les Charles Critchlow, Vurlon Mills, Dwayne Lawrence, Kris Camacho, Calvin Shepherd, Daniel Wilson, Sheldon Holder, Manasseh Primo, Dorville Stewart, Amos Ramsey, Konata Manning and Eon Alleyne are players currently in training.