Guyana’s Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) football team went down 1-2 to Suriname yesterday afternoon on a damp Police Sports Club ground, Eve Leary as the visitors mainiatned their superiority in the discipline.
The visiting team and Guyana had equal ball possession in the opening half with Guyana missing their first two chances to score. Suriname duly scored the first goal through Jonathan Astra in the 23rd minute following which,
Deon Alfred almost equalized for Guyana but the ball went three inches above the cross bar with Suriname’s custodian S. Wilsterman caught in mid-air.
Suriname extended their lead in the 43rd minute when Serginio Eduards kicked in the second and final goal for his team.
Shortly afterwards the first half ended.
Guyana battled hard in the second half and were duly rewarded when Jamal Harvey headed home the team’s first and only goal in the 77th minute.
Following the match Ricardo Pineux, Assistant Coach of the Suriname side in a brief interview with Stabroek Sport, said that his team had been training for four months prior to the competition.
“The team was training four months before. We worked with them and let them get used to the other players on the team,” he said.
“We showed them they way how we wanted them to play and trained 2-3 times per week given that the players had exams,” he added.
Pineux said that he knew Guyana would have been very aggressive early on. “We knew Guyana would be aggressive in the first half so we waited for the right opportunities to score,” he disclosed.
Gordon Braithwaite, Coach of the home team, said Guyana lacked preparation for the games.
“The team never trained together and had no preparation for the match. “There were no balls given to practice with either,” he said.
Braithwaite, who is also Head Coach of the newly formed Slingerz Football Club, said a few players were called from the winning team, Wismar/Christiansburg of the Digicel’s Schools Championship, and the runner-up team, Waramadong but no one showed up.
