ENGLISHMEN Neil Danns, Matthew Briggs, Marcel Barrington and Sam Cox were all granted citizenship and are now eligible to represent Guyana in Sunday’s return leg of their 2018 World Cup Qualifier against St Vincent and the Grenadines. The two CONCACAF Nations will collide at the Guyana National Stadium and with the quartet now receiving their documents, head coach Jamaal Shabazz will put forward the best ‘Golden Jaguars’ line-up.
Failing to be granted citizenship prevented the players from representing Guyana in Wednesday’s 2-2 draw in Kingstown at the Arnos Vale Sports Complex.
“We’re happy that we can now focus on getting the job done on Sunday and not have to worry if we’ll be able to play or not,” said Danns, Bolton Wanderers’ midfield maestro.
Briggs, the youngest player to ever feature in an English Premier League game (16 years and 65 days old with Fulham), stated, “I’m glad that we finally got our documents.
I was worried because we signed on to the programme to help build and push Guyana’s football to the highest level and to not play in the first game was a major disappointment. It’s nice to finally put my mind on tomorrow’s game and get the result we need to advance to the next round of the World Cup Qualifiers.”
The now 24 year-old Briggs also pointed out that he’s happy players like Cox and 19 year-old English Premier League side Leicester’s forward Barrington would be able to get their first international cap.
The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Marketing and Communications director Rawle Toney said that the Federation is “happy that the Government of Guyana was able to issue the players their documents in a timely manner and the GFF is grateful for their support in helping the Golden Jaguars in their quest to Russia 2018”.