Senior team next week in Tobago
GUYANA’S Senior Men’s national football team will undergo a training camp in Tobago next week during which they will play two games against Trinidad and Tobago’s Under-23 Olympic Team and a Tobago Representative team at the Dwight Yorke Stadium. Guyana, under head coach Jamaal Shabazz, is preparing for the upcoming CONCACAF semi-final round of the 2014 World Cup qualifying. They will first play the Tobago outfit from 18:00hrs at the Dwight Yorke Stadium on Tuesday, February 14. The Tobago team will be coached by Bertille St Clair.
The Angus Eve-coached T&T Olympic team will then face the Golden Jaguars at 18:00hrs at the Bacolet venue on Thursday, February 16.
Shabazz is hoping his Guyana team, comprising mostly of home-based players, benefit from the training camp as they prepare to face Costa Rica, Mexico and El Salvador in the qualifiers.
“This is an excellent opportunity for the Guyana team to come over to Tobago to engage in a live-in training camp before the World Cup qualifiers resume.
“I thought it would be a great chance to have the players together and what better opportunity to play a match against the Trinidad and Tobago team who are preparing for the Olympic final round,” Shabazz told TTFF Media.
“I think this will give some of the players in Tobago the chance to showcase their ability also and I expect both matches to be well contested and serve a useful purpose for the preparations of both countries as they prepare for their respective qualifying matches,” added the Caledonia AIA coach.
Eve, meantime, is also looking ahead to a training camp in Costa Rica, following his team’s encounter versus Guyana before heading over to the United States in March for another camp ahead of the official qualifying matches in Carson, California.
“We’ve structured the preparations that would see us go straight into the qualifying matches and I think this game which is part of another training camp in Tobago will serve the team well and then we have a trip to Central America before going to the U.S. for the final hurdle,” Eve said.
“We trained really hard the week going into the Finland game and it paid off with a fairly good performance and result for the team last month. We need to work on certain things during this camp such as our ball possession.
In international football everybody wants to move the ball around quickly and you have to have athletes in your team now to maintain a level of high intensity for 90 minutes and more.
We have had about thirty players in training and we are always looking at new players. Those here with us have done tremendously well and we can only take twenty into the tournament and right now every player is fighting to get in there,” Eve added.
US-based midfielder Kevin Molino will not be in the squad to face Guyana as he has rejoined Orlando City but Eve will welcome the return of Kazakhstan-based defender Robert Primus and Sporting Kansas defender Daneil Cyrus who are both coming off injuries. (TT Pro-League)