TRAINING for the various National youth teams will be intensified in the coming weeks as the countdown to their participation in key Caribbean Football Union (CFU) and CONCACAF youth tournaments in the July-September window draws closer.

Guyana is scheduled to participate in six youth tournaments; CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Qualifiers (July 13-21) to be held in Guyana; preliminary Round of Men’s Under-23 Olympic Qualifier (home & away match) on July 17-21; CFU Girls’ Under-14 from August 1-12 (Group 5) to be held in the Dominican Republic; CONCACAF Under-15 Boys’ Championship from August 4-12 to be held at the IMG Academy, CONCACAF Under-17 Women’s Championship on August 21-25 and the Caribbean Football Union Boys’ Under-14 scheduled for September.

Preparations, which began in May, saw teams engaged in a weekly schedule of training at the GFF National Training Centre, Providence.

“The preparation is taking the form of two weekly sessions for all the youth teams, utilising weekdays from 16:00hrs to 18:00hrs and weekends, when available, for an additional two hours,” said Bryan Joseph, GFF’s Youth Development Officer.

“We have been implementing or applying the new strategy relative to how we prepare national teams so we’re not doing short, compressed preparation anymore. We’re doing preparation over a longer period. While sessions do not increase, what increases is the period of time that we are actually spending in preparing the groups,” Joseph added.

Commenting on the composition of the technical squad, Joseph said this is being led by the Technical Department; “We haven’t yet been able to confirm the staff for the various groups even though respective individuals have been identified and have been working with the various groups. There is some overlapping taking place but as we get closer to tournament date and encampment, we’ll finalise the respective staff.”

Players are taken from the various Academy Training Centres (ATCs) as well as from scouting activities and those identified by the various Technical Development Officers (TDOs). Detailed lists of provisional squads will soon be available.

For the CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Qualifiers, Guyana have been placed in Group A along with Bermuda, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname and St Lucia. Matches are scheduled for the National Track and Field Centre, Leonora (Guyana) and Warner Park, St Kitts & Nevis.

The match schedule for Guyana is as follows:
July 13 – Guyana vs Bermuda – 18:00hrs
July 19 – St. Lucia vs Guyana – 18:00hrs
July 21 – Guyana vs Suriname – 16:00hrs