By: Allan La Rose
in Houston, Texas
With compliments of Colours, Isotonix, Oasis Water and the GFF.
Head Coach of the Guyana Lady Jags, Mark Rodrigues in a post-game interview with Stabroek News expressed satisfaction with his side’s 0-5 defeat to Canada last Thursday night in Houston, Texas.
Rodrigues also complimented the Jags for sticking to the game plan.
“The performance was not disappointing at all. We got exactly what we hoped to get out of it, in essence we were hoping to keep the score line a little bit lower.
“We know the reality going in to play Canada. This gave us 90 minutes of practicing a specific style of play, a specific tactical plan that, now, in the next two games when we are up in the score we can flip the switch and apply this and come away with victory, so we are actually very pleased with the result and very pleased with the way the girls played. You put it into perspective, Guyana is 89th ranked, they are 11th ranked and one of the top teams in the world. They should have beaten us 15 or 20 to nothing,” Coach Rodrigues said.
The clean-shaved Head Coach also broke down the game plane into details.
“Put it into perspective, you normally play 66 minutes in a football match, taking into account stoppages and the ball going out of play. They scored two early goals in the second half that left 43
minutes. They did not score until the 23rd minute of the first half. Add the two and that’s your 66 minutes right there,” Rodrigues declared.
“The whole plan and all this was explained to the players. We still have the chart when we went through these tactics. I said to them the trick is to reduce their playing time of the game. The less time they had with the ball is the greater chance it was.
“I am very proud of these girls as they played exceptionally well. For a few brief moments they didn’t stick to the game plan and we got punished. Also think about it, two of their goals were deflections off a defender,” Rodrigues pointed out.
The Head Coach also stated that the Canadians were better prepared having been together for four months and playing against quality opposition like America, Brazil and England while the locals played no warm up games and did not have even three weeks of preparation.
“The whole plan here is to advance to the semifinals. One game doesn’t advance you to the semifinals. You’ve got to win two and we have two remaining,” an optimistic Rodrigues reminded.
