By Emmerson Campbell
A 2-3 defeat by El Salvador Tuesday night at the Providence National Stadium put paid to the Golden Jaguars hopes of qualifying past the third round of the 2014 football World Cup Qualifiers.
However Coach of the Golden Jaguars, Jamaal Shabazz, said the journey is far from over.
“Far from over is my first description of the campaign,” said Shabazz during an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday.
“It is a work in progress and I have seen the team develop from strength to strength and grow in confidence and this gives me a tremendous amount of enthusiasm to complete the journey which has two more games.”
Guyana’s remaining games will be against Mexico and Costa Rica.
Remaining positive
“I stand to be taken as a lunatic but given the performances of our team in those last two matches, we are going to play Mexico and Costa Rica with a sense of reassurance that we deserve to be on the same pitch with those teams and we deserve to go and look for a positive result.”
The Golden Jaguars will face Group B foes, Mexico in a home game on October 12 followed by an away game versus Costa Rica four days later.
Shabazz said that the focus on the remaining games will be to expose younger players in the team in order to gain quality experience while trying to maintain a competitive squad.
“We have to sneak an opportunity to keep a quality squad but also introduce one or two youngsters as we introduced Treyon Bobb and now the nation is in love with him because he showed tremendous maturity. There are youngsters like Daniel Wilson, Pernell Shultz, William Europe and Andrew Murray Jr., those are young players that, once they reach the standard in these two games, we will see which of them we can introduce.”
Losses against Mexico, 1-3, Costa Rica, 0-4 and a 2-2 draw and 2-3 defeat against El Salvador means that the Golden Jaguars remain in the cellar position of the group with just one point from the draw.
“While we want to gain points and do well in these two games, we want to live in the real world that it is very tough to advance and therefore we have to look to the future. But the future involves the past, Charles `Lily’ Pollard, Leon and Carl Cort and the present Gregory `Jackie Chan’ Richardson, Nick Millington and Bobb so you can see some young faces coming into the line up as well.”
Guyana an emerging football nation
When asked what would he attribute to the losses in the World Cup Qualifiers and how can they be remedied in the future, Shabazz replied.
“The losses as I said before are the growing pains of a football nation emerging. We made some mistakes at CONCACAF level that you would not be punished if you make it at the Caribbean level. This is a learning experience for me ad it has given me an opportunity to expand my perspective in coaching and in football, so I have to take the responsibility for a lot of the errors in planning, logistics, travel, in rest and recovery.
“There were a lot of issues outside of the football field that myself and the staff experienced along the way that will make us better for the future and we are not afraid to say that because we never worked or the players never played at this level before.”
Eye on Caribbean Cup
Shabazz also stated that the team will also be focusing their attention to the upcoming Caribbean Cup Championships.
“We have the Caribbean Cup qualifiers at the end of October. We want to focus on a more local-based team and we have to put them in a camp because there is an absence of them playing club football so we have to create an atmosphere in the camp to subsidise that.”
