…Dover optimistic of advancing despite draw against Cayman Islands

GUYANA will play the US Virgin Islands today from 4:00pm in the Dominican Republic, in a game that the country will want to leave with three points to keep their hopes alive of advancing to the CONCACAF U-20 Championships.

Group D of the CONCACAF U-20 Championship qualifiers kicked off with a hard-fought contest between Guyana and the Cayman Islands that ended in a 0-0 draw. Guyana played the final 32 minutes with 10 men due to a red card for Yohance Douglas.

The stars on the day were the two goalkeepers in action, as Guyana’s Ronaldo Blair and Cayman Islands counterpart, Leandre Mckay each made a number of big saves to secure a point for their side.

Sitting atop Group D at present is Nicaragua following their 7-0 triumph over the US Virgin Islands.

“The game against Cayman Islands was a competitive battle, one that we expected knowing them from the 2018 tournament and what they were expected to bring to the table,” Dover said in an invited comment.

Dover highlighted the team’s six-week preparation, which, he said, was timely to get them up to the level seen in their game against the Cayman Islands.

“We have to take notice of the fact this is a relatively very young team with more than 50 per cent with no international exposure and experience, so it was a very big ask of them and they stood up and they should be pat on their shoulders and be told well done lads,” Dover said.

According to the former Senior National team Men’s coach, “while the group didn’t play with total cohesion, especially in our offensive build-up, collectively the group fought hard to prevent a defeat.”

The team’s captain, Omari Glasgow, probably the best player on the team with some experience with the senior Golden Jaguars, became the go-to person in the later stages of the game; something Dover said they will be guarding against going forward.

With Nicaragua securing full points with their win over the USVI, Guyana’s two remaining matches will have to be seen as must-win, if they want to advance to the ‘big dance’ next year.

“Every team enters every tournament with an aim to qualify for the latter stage and possibly win the tournament. In this case, we wanted to qualify for the CONCACAF Championship next year,” Dover lamented.

Dover related that although they didn’t get the result expected against the Cayman Islands, “a draw gives us one point and with two more games to play, six points from those games would send us to seven points.”

“In the other two games, our primary objective is to win and get three points; we have to start to look at the possibility of scoring goals to help with the qualification to the next round,” Dover stressed.

Today, Dover’s plan is to “start a more attacking team for us to find a way to score lots of goals to build a solid goal difference.”

Following the conclusion of the Qualifiers, a total of 20 teams will participate at the CONCACAF Men’s Under-20 Championship in the summer of 2022.

This will include the top four teams from the Qualifiers and the region’s top 16 ranked teams (based on the CONCACAF Men’s Under-20 Rankings) who receive a bye to the Championship.

The 2022 CONCACAF Men’s Under-20 Championship will qualify its semi-finalists (four teams) to the FIFA Men’s U-20 World Cup in Indonesia in 2023 and its finalists (two teams) to the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games.