By Rawle Toney

HEAD coach of Guyana’s Golden Jaguars, Márcio Máximo is already strategising his course of action ahead of next year’s clash with Guatemala in the Preliminary stage of the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Guyana are ranked 19th in CONCACAF and 166th in the world as per the latest FIFA ranking, and will now match skills with the 9th in the region and 130th internationally, in the Qualifier to the Gold Cup.

Though falling 3-0 in their first meeting 2010, and then 2-0 two years later at Guyana National Stadium, Guyana will be hoping to come away with a win and move on to face either The Bahamas or Guadeloupe in the second round.

Should the Brazilian coach and his troops be successful, they will be drawn in Group C of the CONCACAF Gold Cup alongside Jamaica, Suriname and Costa Rica.

Máximo was among other participating head coaches who virtually participated in the Gold Cup draw, and stated that Guatemala are “one of the strongest teams in the preliminary groups. They have a good style, similar to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras and will be challenging for us but I think it’s a challenge for us because it will raise the level of our game and serve as a motivation to do extra, to make an extra effort to try and surprise Guatemala.”

The 58-year-old, who stood at the helm of the Brazilian U-17 and U-20 national teams, believes that Golden Jaguars’ chances of qualifying to the Group stages of the CONCACAF showpiece, since he would have changed the style of play for his team.

Máximo said the team is “faster in offensive transition and we have done some improvement in the defensive structure to have more consistency. We will have to reduce the pace of the game for Guatemala and I think if we do good marking with a good, solid defensive system, we can have a surprise for Guatemala. Why not? We will approach the match with confidence.”

Máximo is known as a youth development-oriented coach and would have found considerable amount of success for this out-look, especially during his tenure with the Tanzania senior men’s team (2006 – 2010), and would have brought a similar approach to the Golden Jaguars.

He reasoned that Golden Jaguars will see a good combination of Guyana and international-based players, calling it “necessary to achieve success.”

“What we are doing in Guyana is real development because we will use our Guyana-based players in the process in good numbers. That’s why I believe in the few years coming, Guyana will be a powerful force in the Caribbean. A good combination of Guyana and international-based players is necessary to achieve success. International players are very important for their experience with the group,” Máximo said.

He further highlighted that “quality Guyana-based players serve as a good motivator for young players to play football in Guyana and increase the followership of football in Guyana. That’s why we compete and develop at the same time.”

The 2021 Gold Cup will begin on July 2, 2021, with a Preliminary Round which will include 12 CONCACAF Member Associations competing for the final three spots in the 16-team Group Stage.

The Group Stage of the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup will kick off on July 10, 2021. The 12 CONCACAF national teams, who qualified directly through their performances in the CONCACAF Nations League group stage, the guest participant, AFC Asian Cup Champions Qatar, and the three Prelim winners have been divided into four groups.

The Knockout Stage, to be played among the top two finishers in each group, will for the first time in Gold Cup history see teams on opposite sides of the bracket meet from the quarterfinals onwards.

In previous editions, teams have only competed against opponents on the same side of the bracket until the Final. This change will add further unpredictability and excitement to the competition, which was expanded from 12 to 16 teams for a hugely successful 2019 edition.