_{GUYANA’S Women’s National football team, more popularly known as ‘Lady Jags’, will host Group E of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Caribbean Qualifying tournament, at a venue to be announced by the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) in May.}

_{The Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda and Haiti will join Guyana as hosts for their respective groups for the tournament that will see the top three teams from the Caribbean participate in the 2018 CONCACAF Women’s Championship, also known as the CONCACAF Gold Cup, which acts as qualification for the 2019 Women’s World Cup.}

_{Lady Jags will play Bermuda, Suriname and Barbados in the four-team group, where the winner will advance to the round-robin stage with all group winners to be one of three teams from the Caribbean region to play alongside Mexico, Canada and hosts USA at the CONCACAF showpiece, set for October 4-17.}

_{In Group A, the Dominican Republic will host Puerto Rico, Cuba, Anguilla and Aruba while in Group B, Haiti will be hosts to Martinique, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos and Guadeloupe.}

_{Trinidad and Tobago will host Group C featuring Dominica, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Kitts and Nevis and Grenada. Group D will bring together Antigua and Barbuda (hosts), St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia and Curacao.}

_{Guyana will have a ‘dress rehearsal’ for their showing in May, when they head to Trinidad and Tobago to play in the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Women’s Challenge Series Tournament, scheduled for April 18-29, at the Ato Boldon Stadium.}

_{The Guyanese women will open up their campaign against Grenada on April 25, followed by a clash with rivals Suriname two days later. The Lady Jags will then close things off with a match against one of Caribbean’s leading female side and hosts Trinidad on April 29.}

_{Guyana’s female national team happens to be the GFF’s most successful senior programme, having qualified for two major CONCACAF events while the men’s team are yet to achieve even a Gold Cup berth.}

_{In 2010, the Lady Jags competed at the CONCACAF Gold Cup and World Cup qualifier where they went down 7-2 to eventual runners-up and hosts Mexico 8-0 to tournament winners Canada and 4-1 to Trinidad and Tobago.}

_{It was their first taste of competition from some of CONCACAF’s biggest names. Kayla De Souza and Mariam El-Masri (two goals) were the only two players to find the back of the net at the tournament.}

_{The women’s programme went dormant after their showing in Cancun, Mexico, but were given a revival under the GFF’s Normalisation Committee in 2015 where they qualified for the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifier tournament.}

_{At the tournament, hosted in Texas, USA at the BBVA Compass Stadium, Guyana won their first and only game at the CONCACAF level, a 2-1 victory over Guatemala, thanks to a beautiful strike from Alison Heydorn in the 76th minute. El-Masri had scored the equaliser in the 71st minute.}

_{However, Guyana did not advance since they went down 5-0 to tournament runners-up Canada in their first game, and 5-1 to Trinidad and Tobago in their final showing.}

_{The composition of Guyana’s team is not yet known, and according to the GFF, a head coach will be announced shortly, despite not advertising for the vacancy.}