The Golden Jaguars U20 National football team will depart local shores on Wednesday November 3rd to participate in the Concacaf U20 Qualifiers scheduled for November 5 to14 in the Dominican Republic.
According to information reaching Stabroek Sports, the entire squad is present locally as the overseas-based players have been training with the local contingent for more than a week. They will all depart at the same time for the Dominican Republic.
The team, which will compete in group-D of the qualifiers, was announced several days prior by the management staff. The 20 member roster, which contains seven overseas-based players, reads: Goalkeepers – Ronaldo Blair, Grant Wyles, and Joshua Naraine; Defenders – Kehance Scott, Devon Padmore, Jerome Harrigan, Sealon Sue, Brandon Solomon, and Alexander Davidson; Midfielders – Kyon Alphonso, Kevin Mullin, Darron Niles, Ofancy Winter, Solomon Austin, and Nathaniel Pydana, and Forwards – Keenan Happer, Yohance Douglas, Perry Gaul Jr, Omari Glasgow, and Ravi Coates.
The Technical Staff, which is headed by Wayne Dover, comprises Assistant Coaches Charles Pollard and Anthony Benfield, as well as Goalkeeper Coach Eon DeViera.
Guyana will compete with Nicaragua, Cayman Islands and the US Virgin Islands.
In Group-A, the teams are British Virgin Islands, Curacao, Dominica, Grenada, and Sint Maarten, while Group-B comprises Anguilla, Belize, Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia, and Saint Martin.
Group-C consists of Barbados, Bermuda, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
According to an official release from regional confederation, the qualifiers will be staged in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, from November 5 to 14, with the four eventual group winners progressing to the 2022 Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship.
Guyana competed in the 2018 and 2020 versions of the event. In the 2020 version which featured a qualifying section, Guyana defeated Montserrat 6-0, SVG 3-0 and the USVI 2-0. Their only defeat came at the hands of the higher ranked hosts Nicaragua via a 1-0 score line which sealed their exit from the competition.
The 2018 tournament, which was hosted in the United States of America, did not feature a qualifying tournament. (All of the 34 entrants were guaranteed a minimum of four matches. Seven countries did not participate).
The Golden Jaguars finished the tournament with a record of one win and three losses. Guyana defeated El Salvador 2-0, but lost to Guatemala (0-4), Cayman Islands (2-3), and Curaçao (3-4).
