Guyana U-17 Girls Football Assistant Coach, Tricia Munroe, exuded confidence ahead of their final group-D matchup today against Cuba at the National Track and Field Centre, Leonora in the CONCACAF Girls Football Championship.
Guyana faceoff with Cuba today from 17:00hrs in a must win fixture for both teams. Guyana lost 5-1 to Barbados in their opening game, while the Cubans drew with the Barbadians 0-0 in their first match.
Speaking at a press briefing held at the Princess Ramada Hotel, Providence, Munroe said, “I am 100 percent positive because we will be able to encourage and motivate the girls and even though Cuba is more technically sound than us, on game day it is who wants it more, who is hungrier”.
Munroe, who also holds the portfolio of GFF Women’s Development Officer said, “This tournament will mean a lot to Guyana. We acknowledge the positive, help to increase participation, develop our coach’s education along with strengthening our youth program and having our girls playing from schools to elite, amateur to grassroots with a well-structured program and our girls able to compete at a competitive level locally and internationally. I am optimistic that our girls could only get better as we are on the pathway of getting better.”
On the other hand, Paul Beresford, GFF International Women’s Coordinator, said, “We were very satisfied with what we saw yesterday [Friday] as far as the Cuba match with Barbados. We are able to put together a strategy that will give us a boost and hopefully get a good result against Cuba. I think the girls are prepared, focused and we are just asking for them to give their all tomorrow”.
According to Beresford, “I think one of the things we saw with the Cuba/Barbados game is that technical superiority does not necessarily get you points. One of the things that we demonstrated even in the Barbados game which they are a more technical team at every position than Guyana, if it wasn’t for the opportunities that we missed in the first half in terms of getting the ball on target, we had nine free-kicks in the first half, had one on target and scored it. So I think despite Cuba’s technical superiority, one of the things that we stressed to players is make sure when you lose possession of the ball that you get back and defend and as we saw with Cuba in their final third, they were unable to execute and score any goals because Barbados collapsed on them.”
Meanwhile, Cuba head-coach Lazaro Alfonso via a translator said, “We have to be careful because every game is different from the other, and no game is the same. We have to be careful going into the match. We are going to work on the structure going into the game, you win it with goals and we are looking forward to scoring goals tomorrow [today].”
