COACH of Guyana’s Golden Jaguars football team Jamaal Shabazz says that the team needs a home locally if the players are to be serious about development. Speaking on Sunday, Shabazz indicated that they have got to get a place where football can utilise a full-time facility.

“We want to be able, as a federation, to get proper facilities, a home. Before we can talk technical errors, I think we’ve got to get a home where the national team could train comfortably, where we will have a full pitch to train on and build the programme like that.” Already, the federation is moving to get such done with the recent signing of a 30-year lease with the Eccles/Ramsburg NDC to build the Providence High Performance Centre.
According to Normalisation Committee (NC) chairman Clinton Urling, Guyana will have an artificial turf and a beach soccer facility.
Shabazz remained positive about the way forward for the Golden Jaguars after their exit from the World Cup qualifiers.
He stated that several on-field developments are set for the coming months.
“We have the Elite league coming, where the players based in Guyana will compete against each other and it’s the only way forward. We can’t say, we have to work on passing, we have to work on shooting, we have to work on defending. No!. We have got to look at a holistic programme going forward and build.”
The National coach carried on by saying that the team must continue to be active and get as much practice games as possible.
“We have FIFA dates coming up and I think it is necessary for us to play on all those FIFA dates, not let the football do what it did for two and a half years – stay dormant.
Football is to be played and now we’ve got to build a product. When you are down is the time you need the support.” He continued, “It is a very, very difficult situation when you don’t achieve your objective, but Rome wasn’t built in a day and the blows that don’t break our back, will certainly strengthen it”
The Jaguars exited the FIFA World Cup 2018 Russia last Sunday evening at the hands of St Vincent and the Grenadines (Vincy Heat) after a 4-4 draw saw the touring side progress over the away goal rule.

By Stephan Sookram