– Mexico defeat USA 2 – 0 to win CONCACAF U-15 Championship

GUYANA wrapped up their showing at the 2017 Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Under-15 Championship, with a heart-breaking 6 – 5 ‘sudden-death’ penalty loss to Puerto Rico yesterday at the world-renowned IMG Academy campus in Bradenton, Florida.

It was the junior Jaguars’ fourth match in the tournament and coach, Bryan Joseph, had wanted to pick up his second win, having defeated St Lucia 1 – 0 two days prior.
However, despite getting the game’s fight goal which came from Orville Daniels in the 31st minute, Guyana conceded in the 60th minute when Yavieric Ortiz scored for Puerto Rico.
The two sides failed to capitalise on several chances, and with the scores tied at the end of regulation time, it went down to penalty kicks.

Both sides were very careful with their kicks, and after being even again, it went down to sudden death, with the Spanish speaking Island prevailing 6 – 5.
Guyana had opened the tournament with a draw (1 – 1) against St Kitts and Nevis, but fell 3 – 1 to rivals Suriname, but rebounded against St Lucia (winning 1 – 0) to finish second in Group-F of the tournament.

The CONCACAF Under-15 Championship was said to be the largest CONCACAF tournament ever, including 39 Member Associations and over 700 youth players from across the Confederation.

To ensure sporting balance and to fully leverage this unique development opportunity for the full contingent of young CONCACAF players, participating associations were divided into division play in which all 39 teams were guaranteed a maximum amount of competitive matches throughout the week.

The structure included three separate divisions, with seeding based on each Member Association’s performance over the last three editions of the CONCACAF Under-17 Men’s Championship, as well as qualifying for that event.
Within each division, the participating teams had been divided into groups of four teams (with one group of three) for round-robin play.