The overseas-based Guyanese team was way too much for the locals to handle as they sank them five goals to nil when the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Women’s International Goodwill tournament kicked off yesterday.
Playing at the Guyana National Stadium at Providence, Maria El Masri just 37 seconds into the game netted the tournament’s first goal which also signalled a pretty long night for the local ladies.
The ball was kept mostly in the half of the visiting team up for the first 20 minutes of the game and it was during this time strikers Ashlee Savona and Ashley Rodrigues began to make the game painful for the local defenders.
Local team captain Tricia Munroe was kept busy all game but though the defensive player was a stalwart at the back, she could not keep the two players from terrorising her goal.
Savona pounced on a ball coming in from Rodrigues and the advancing keeper to give her side a two-nil lead.
Guyana had their first real chance on goal by Lindener Stacy Hoyte but that was as close as she and her fellow up front player Charmaine Wade would get to the visitors’ goal.
The first half saw several changes by Coach Mark Rodrigues who chose to keep refreshing the legs of his team at regular intervals while local coach Wayne ‘Wiggy’ Dover remained with his starting line-up which obviously did not work in his favour.
Nevertheless, the local ladies through their captain Munroe, held the overseas-based players to a 2-0 first half score.
But while the local ladies did play a much better game in the second half, overseas team captain Rodrigues, a former Canadian national under-15 player and Eastern Michigan University Mid American Conference player of the year, would show her stuff and netted a double with her goals coming in the 56th and 59th minutes.
Some changes by Dover saw a much more composed team on the field especially when Rupununi goal keeper Lioni Robertson was brought into the game.
Before she was injured in the later stages in the second half, she stopped several certain goals which would have given the overseas team a wider margin of victory.
Kaitlyn Wong-you added the finishing touches in the 84th minute and though she and her teammates tried to widen the victory tally, time did not permit.
Coach Rodrigues told Stabroek Sport after the game that while his team did win yesterday, he was disappointed with their performance since they can do much more.
“I think they played poor because I know the level these girls are at and what they can do, but while we would have picked up the win, we were very slack in certain areas. But I must say that they have only been together for a few days before coming here, but tomorrow (today) against Suriname, you’re going to see a much better team, you know, they’ll be much more composed”, Rodrigues said.
Rodrigues, who also serves as the Technical Director for the GFF Women’s programme, said “I purposely told my girls to press forward and go hard at them because I want to see how they will manage to the pace of these ladies, and while they didn’t really, I saw certain things in a few players that can be developed easily”.
Dover who is making his first appearance on the Female National team said that he too was pleased with their showing and that it will be back to the drawing board.
“The girls did well, in the defensive areas, I see them trying to play what I told them to, but the overseas ladies were much more superior to us but the ladies did a good job”, Dover said.
