By Emmerson Campbell
Last year’s second place finisher in the Kashif and Shanghai tournament, Pele, have already commenced preparations for this year’s 22nd annual K&S tournament in their quest to secure their second title.
Stabroek Sport caught up with Pele’s coach Gordon ‘Ultimate Warrior’ Braithwaite yesterday during his team’s practice session at the National Park where he spoke about their preparation, their strength, weaknesses and also their chances of winning the tournament.
Braithwaite revealed that the team has been preparing for quite some time but said their training intensity has really picked up over the last week.
“The preparation is now really getting on its way. We started to prepare for this tournament for weeks, we tried to get some morning sessions but they weren’t going too good but we started really preparing properly from last week in terms of intensity.”
He said that the competitive nature of the senior players has rubbed off on the younger footballers and the enthusiasm and team spirit are very high.
“The training is going really good now as you see the boys are really playing with a lot of spirit, the enthusiasm is there and that happens when you see senior men like (Gregory ‘Jackie Chan’) Richardson and them pushing themselves so the other players look up to them as role models and they follow them.”
The ‘Ultimate Warrior’ highlighted that the team’s ability to pass the ball effectively was one of their major strengths.
“Our strength is knocking the ball, any good team that is one of their strength. Our passing is one of our greatest strengths, how we play that will be good for us, the construction of our passes will be a major advantage.”
Braithwaite stressed that a major bug bear however, is the lack of cohesion of his team.
“Not playing together will be one of our weaknesses. We’re not having any real team competition, there wasn’t a league, we are not in a league, so we are just trying to get that cohesion, we are trying to build up cohesion right now because we haven’t been playing together for a while.”
He also expressed confidence in his team lifting the 22nd K&S first prize.
“It is Pele. We always have a favourable opinion about our chances, the respect other clubs and people have for the team and what we have for ourselves and the nature of the players are always positive. We are always confident of our chances. Last year we lost to Alpha (United) but we are confident of winning this year.”
Braithwaite said that some of the players who will make up the lineup will include national striker Richardson, national player Travis ‘Zorro’ Grant, Marvin ‘Springer’ Joseph, former national striker/midfielder Kanata Mannings and Sheldon Holder. Pele will open their account against Timehri Panthers on Saturday at the GFC ground and Braithwaite said that he will be hoping the team uses the opportunity to build cohesion and gel as a unit.
The other match on that day will feature Kuru Kururu Warriors tackling Mills Ballers from Bartica.
