National junior Head Coach Bryan Joseph said he is pleased with his team’s showing in the recently held Caribbean Football Union (CFU) u-17 tourney, despite their shortcomings in failing to qualify for the final round of the event.
Speaking via telephone during an exclusive interview, Joseph said “Given the time of our preparation, I am about 80 percent satisfied with the performances of the entire group of players. I am pleased amidst the disappointment”.
“For me the expectations were surpassed. Given the time we had to prepare, I thought we would have played at par. However entering the last game with the opportunity to win the group showed that we played above par” said Joseph.
According to Joseph “I think we were a couple of levels above par. I think clearly we were just as competitive as all the other teams and as a matter of fact, after the first round of matches, it was generally thought that Guyana would have been the team to beat”.
“In the second match we really played according to the plan and were excellent even though the goals we conceded were soft. One was a back pass that got stolen and the other was a case of the wingback ball watching and getting caught out of position” added Joseph.
He noted “Obviously in game three the pressure got to the players. Once Barbados played before us and won, I tried to keep the score line away from the players but the Barbados team told them and it put further pressure on them. It made them think they would have to do something special”.
Joseph further said “We started to search for goals knowing we had to score four goals to win the group.
That wasn’t the instruction given to them. This was the players deciding what they needed to do and the game was played very open”.
“The compactness we played with in the previous games was missing and we just conceded just before halftime from a set play. Then at the half time, the plan was to stop them from scoring another goal and then press for an equalizer. But then obviously the players went back out and we conceded in second half” he said.
Questioned about the areas that the team could have improved on, he said “We were poor at set pieces as well as defending set plays and game management of the players. Also the concentration throughout the game especially at the latter stages could have been better”.
Quizzed about his thoughts on the other teams, Joseph said “I think they are just on par, none of them were exceptional and it was a very balanced group. I think tactically Guyana showed a better understanding of the game but the Dominican Republic was technically sound and obviously the Barbados team showed good balance in all positions”.
Guyana failed to qualify for the final round of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) u-17 qualifying tourney, finishing third in Group-3 with four points from three games.
In the opening matchup, Guyana drew with Barbados 1-1 while they defeated Antigua and Barbuda 3-2 in their second fixture.
Needing a win in the final fixture to keep their hopes alive of qualifying to the final round, Guyana went down to hosts Dominican Republic by a 3-0 score line.
