The Golden Jaguars, Guyana’s senior men’s football team will attempt to secure their first win in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers today when they battle The Bahamas at the Estadio Panamericano in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic.
It will be the first ever competitive meeting of the nations and Guyana enters the clash on the back of a 3-0 drubbing at the hands of Caribbean giant and traditional rival Trinidad and Tobago. Similarly, The Bahamas was thrashed 4-0 in their recent encounter with group leaders St. Kitts/ Nevis.
However, Trinidad and Tobago’s 1-1 stalemate with Puerto Rico on Sunday has given Guyana a chance to remain in contention of progressing to the next round.
Golden Jaguars head-coach Marcio Maximo during a virtual pre-match press conference said, “We need to have two words for tomorrow, patience and organization. Organizing to create the chances. I saw the game between Bahamas and St Kitts and in the first 30 minutes Bahamas had some chances to score. We should be careful and not play with over confidence.”
Asked about possible changes to the starting XI, Maximo said, “This will be announced before the game. I think the big problem in the last game was not players, was some positions and movement on the pitch but we will fix it during training and I hope tomorrow (today) that we repeat and play well for the game.”
He added, “We will fix our mistakes in the last game but that’s part of the process and the result of yesterday gave us hope. I think all teams have chance to qualify and the race is still open. I hope tomorrow we can confirm it.”
Captain Sam Cox said, “You got a sense of the atmosphere after the loss, we were all down, deflated, sad but that is part and parcel of football. You have to pick yourself up quickly because, of course, we knew the game was coming up. The chat was literally have your own time, we had a day to reflect and recover. The day after it was back to business. The manager spoke to us about still having a chance to qualify from this group and yesterday result with Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago has given us a glimmer of hope. That has given us some confidence going into this game, we know that we didn’t put out the best performance that we could, we understand that.”
He added,“We’ve spoken about it on how to rectify it going into The Bahamas game. We are fully prepared, we got another session today (yesterday) and we can go into the game with some confidence and hopefully get a good result.
“Let’s try and end this camp on a high, let’s try and end it with a win. You look at the group and at the end of second round we are still in with a chance for qualification going into the games in June. A lot of talking has been done but now is the time to do the talking on the pitch. We ask that everybody sends their positive vibes and gets behind us and let’s really have a go at this and do the best we can”, he added.
In their third match, Guyana will travel to St Kitts and Nevis on June 4 before ending their group round at home on June 8 against Puerto Rico. Only the group winner will progress to the second stage of the qualifiers.
The complete Golden Jaguars squad reads: Kyle McKenzie-Lyle, Miguel Scarlett, Matthew Briggs, Kadell Daniels, Bayli Spencer-Adams, Terrence Vancooten, Nathan Moriah-Welsh, Sam Cox, Callum Harriott, Keanu Marsh-Brown, Emery Welshman, Akel Clarke, Shawn Adonis, Nikkoloi Andrews, Nicholas MacArthur, Kelsey Benjamin, Jeremy Garrett, Ryan Hackett, Daniel Wilson, Pernell Schultz, Trayon Bobb, Job Caesar and Omari Glasgow.
