TECHNICAL Director of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Ian Greenwood revealed that the country’s National U-15 will spend five days in the Twin Island Republic, in preparation for the CONCACAF U-15 Championship, set for Bradenton, Florida, August 13-19.
Guyana will be grouped with St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and Suriname in the tournament that features some of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football’s (CONCACAF) top teams.

Greenwood, speaking to Chronicle Sport yesterday, believes that the current bunch of players have what it takes to make it all the way at the tournament which will be played at the IMG Academy.
“The boys have been responding well (at training). We’ve done a lot of work in terms of tactical formation in and out of position.” Greenwood said, adding “we’ve also unearthed two players who will get into the squad that came through the academy programme. So we’re very confident with what we’ve put together from December, and also looking at the boys from where we started to what we are now.”

A lone strike from Jermaine Garrett was good enough to help Guyana clinch a 1-0 victory over hosts St Martin to win the U-15 SOUALIGA Cup on June 4, with Greenwood stating that the tournament where they played undefeated, offered the perfect insight on whether or not the Guyanese players were ready to face some of CONCACAF’s top playing nations.
Greenwood, however, stated that after the team returns from their current break of encampment on August 1, they would spend the next five days going through some rigorous training, after which, the final team for the CONCACAF tournament will be selected.

The team will then journey to Trinidad and Tobago, where they will face the Island’s National U-15 team who are also scheduled to participate in the tournament in Florida.
“We’re going to take the team to Trinidad for five days where we’re going to be playing the country’s U-15 National team,” Greenwood said. “We feel we’re real strong this year but playing against Trinidad and Tobago, who happened to be one the strongest teams in CONCACAF at that level, we’ll be able to have a good idea of where we are.”

After their five-day stay in Trinidad and Tobago, the team will travel to Florida, with Greenwood being optimistic of a positive outcome, stating, “In our group, we feel very confident where we got St Lucia, St Kitts and Suriname. We feel that when we put this team together, we can beat anyone in front of us.”