By Orin Davidson
The FIFA website described it as a minor shock, but to hardcore Guyana fans, the team’s defeat by Suriname in the CONCACAF World Cup football preliminary game was a devastating result.
Which is why a few burning questions have to be asked, beginning with coach Jamaal Shabazz’s choice of players that took the field in Paramaribo last Saturday.
Less than two years ago and the last time the two teams clashed, Guyana thrashed Suriname 5-0 en-route to a fabulous run to the Digicel Caribbean Cup Finals.
But, missing from the starting XI on Saturday were Nigel Codrington and Anthony `Awo’ Abrams, two key strikers who have proven themselves capable goal scorers before, after and during that period.
For a team that scored 28 goals in nine matches from Round One through Round Two and in the Finals of the Digicel Cup, being reduced to a toothless strike force, unable to muster a single goal at the Andre Kamperveen Stadium, suggests things going awry.
And, barring a warped policy which goes against the grain of world football management, Shabazz has to be held accountable.
Because just like Rene Simoes is responsible for the selection of the Jamaica team, Dunga for Brazil’s or Fabio Capello for England’s, the buck stops at Shabazz where Guyana is concerned.
People need to know why Codrington, the highest scorer of the entire Digicel Cup series with 11 goals and who made himself the superstar of Guyana’s epic performance was bizarrely left on the bench at kickoff time in Suriname.
And similarly, why Abrams, who has come into his own proving that his scoring feats in the Georgetown domestic league and for the national team are for real, did not make the starting cut, even in the absence of Randolph `Blackhead’ Jerome.
This is not a case of these two vital players not being available.
They were very much on the spot but the coach chose not to fully utilize the resources he had at his beck and call.
Whatever the competition, team or place, Codrington has shown he can score.
Whether it is in the Trinidad league, or for the Cleveland City Stars in Ohio, or for Guyana, he displays the ability to get the ball into the back of the net.
In other words Codrington is a natural goal scorer.
He delighted everyone who saw him in the Caribbean Cup with his dribbling, pace and shooting ability.
But on Saturday he was reduced to a reserve and, along with Abrams, was not brought into the game until very late to try and retrieve what was by then, a lost cause.
It was very similar to the scenario enacted by ex-Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira in the 2006 World Cup quarter finals, closing the stable door after the horse had bolted, introducing his best strikers after France had virtually sealed a 1-0 victory.
Shabazz has developed a reputation of speaking freely to the media about the team at every turn, which is good.
He likes to use all sorts of flowery language, but never once did he mention that Codrington or Abrams were injured or ill.
So we have to assume their omission was a football decision.
Guyana though, does not have an embarrassment of player riches for the coach to be cute with team decisions, as they do in the big countries of world football.
If according to reports he used only one striker up front, as many of those countries do, that is also a no-no. The coach has to face reality that strikers have to be played in tandem.
Shabazz seems to have done a good job of gelling the team, but seems to have a problem selecting the best squads.
He has committed another error now just as he did in the Digicel Finals (when he replaced star goalkeeper Richard Reynolds with Jason Lloyd who leaked two goals that cost Guyana the match against St Vincent and a place in the Gold Cup).
In cricket they say you never mess with a winning team or with proven players, Shabazz probably is not a fan of that discipline.
No disrespect to Collie `Hitman’ Hercules, he was once one of Guyana’s best strikers, but now is not his time. He could not even make the squad which trounced Suriname in Curacao and should not be played ahead of Codrington or Abrams anytime now.
Then there is this issue of the players using short shoe studs instead of the longer type on a heavy field in Suriname.
You have to wonder why our coach has this knack of losing focus at just the wrong times.
To add insult to injury we are also hearing of the team’s embarrassment of having two of the foreign- based players being rejected from the game for not having Guyana passports.
This is not the fault of the coach, rather a Guyana Football Federation (GFF) blunder which the president Colin Klass explained, stating they were hoping to get a free pass from the match commissioner as the passports for the Newton brothers were not ready for processing.
But living in hope and dreams have been the story of the GFF’s life under Klass’s watch.
Just as they were back in 1999, effusing hopes that FIFA would build a stadium for Guyana, that fooled an entire nation.
Klass might also want to answer the question why John Rodrigues, the Miami FC Blues defender was not in the team this time around.
Here was a player who proved his worth in gold in the Digicel finals and is now absent for the more important competition.
A recent check of the club’s website revealed Rodrigues is on the rooster and played in a recent United States Soccer League game.
Was no effort made to acquire the player or was it a question of money? The same questions must be asked about Jerome who recently earned a contract in the said competition.
If Klass employs the same skill and energy he has used to keep himself in power for 20 years, despite the continued precarious state of Guyana’s football, on issues such as getting this team fully ready for the World Cup, there will be no need for these types of columns.
Of late he has been making a lot of noise about getting the Providence Cricket stadium for the Suriname return match.
But you have to wonder at the necessity for the entire hullabaloo.
It surely could not be for the benefit of the team, because the players have never played a game at Providence which could present a big disadvantage, relative to playing conditions, in the end.
And Guyana does not have the type of fan support that could fill up the stadium for any type of game.
What is so wrong with the GCC facility which the players know well and where they scored 13 goals in the Digicel Cup that included a victory over Guadeloupe who went on to qualify for the Gold Cup?
Who is Klass trying to impress by having the game staged at Providence?
If it is his buddy Jack Warner, the CONCACAF president and FIFA vice president, he should know that the former is more impressed by results.
Warner spared few superlatives in lauding Guyana after they won Groups One and Two of the Digicel Cup.
Sunday therefore is a crucial day for Guyana’s football.
It will be our turn to reverse the Dutch-speaking team’s “We knack dem three” battle cry that haunted us for years after Guyana beat Suriname 2-0 at home and then lost 3-0 there to be eliminated from our first World Cup appearance in 1976.
Trinidadian Shabazz has been displaying a wealth of knowledge on Guyana.
Therefore he should know about that experience 32 years ago and bear it mind when he makes the decisions needed for that necessary two-goal margin victory.
