… Guyana record best years

DUE to the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the football calendar and continued concerns over international travel, FIFA recently announced the cancellation of the FIFA U-17 and U-20 Men’s World Cups, scheduled to take place in Peru and Indonesia in 2021, respectively.
Given FIFA’s decision, the continued uncertainty regarding the impact of COVID-19 in our own region and concerns regarding youth teams travelling in this environment, CONCACAF has come to the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 CONCACAF Under-17 Qualifiers and Championship, and the 2020 CONCACAF Under-20 Championship.

UNDER-17S ADVANCE
In 2019, Guyana’s participation in the biennial tournament yielded their most successful results but unfortunately their run ended at the Group stage. Pegged in a tough group, Guyana fell 0-4 to El Salvador, 0-3 to Honduras and 0-6 to Haiti.
Prior to this tournament, the National Under-17 squad had never exited the first round and qualified for the Group stage in their 11 attempts between 1996 and 2017.

UNDER-20S NARROWLY MISS 3RD ROUND
The 2020 CONCACAF U-20 Championship was scheduled to be the 7th edition of the Championship (28th edition if all eras included); the biennial international youth football championship, organised by CONCACAF for Under-20 national teams of the North, Central American and Caribbean region.
Last year, the 2020 tournament was scheduled to be held in Honduras between June 20 and July 5. However, on May 13, 2020, CONCACAF announced the decision to postpone the tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the new dates of the tournament to be confirmed later. With no sight of absolute control over the pandemic in the near future, that task was among those cancelled.
Guyana’s team charged ahead in the qualifying phase of this tournament as they commenced with a commanding 6-0 win over Montserrat then followed up with a 3-0 triumph over St Vincent and the Grenadines. They notched up their third consecutive victory with a 2-0 result against the US Virgin Islands but narrowly lost the final match 0-1 to Nicaragua.
That performance was only good enough for second place in Group A which was topped by undefeated Nicaragua – the only team from the Group to move on to the third round (knockout phase).

RESUMPTION
Football’s local governing body, the Guyana Football Federation (GFF,) recently breathed a sigh of relief as they managed to acquire permission for the resumption of the sport during the pandemic. However, it was the senior men who got the opportunity to compete again.
While it is an encouraging sign for the fraternity, all categories under the age of 20 both male and female are still inactive locally. GFF will have its hands full with chartering a path forward to get junior level football back on track.
But with these competitions being cancelled indeterminately, the Federation has a lot of time to refocus its efforts on the progression of grass-root level football.