MINNESOTA, USA, CMC – Head coach of the Guyana Jaguars Michael Johnson believes his team will silence the doubters and kickstart their Gold Cup campaign with a win over the USA tomorrow.
USA are the defending champions and Johnson said his team had not been given much of a chance to score a goal, furthermore win the contest.
However, he said while the Jaguars did not have any “big names” in their squad, they were fully capable of being competitive against the higher ranked Americans.
“We don’t have the big names like the Christian Pulisic worth $52 million, but we have got a real, tightly knit group together and I think that you will always go further together.
Michael Johnson believes the Guyana Jaguars can upset the defending champions USA
“Nobody has given us a chance of scoring a goal or winning a game. I’ve heard that you would not get a point. I’ve heard some of the media talking that it’s a great chance for USA to kick-start their bad run of form, but we are 100 per cent positive in the way we would be approaching our matches,” Johnson said.
Following their first game on June 18 against the USA, Guyana will travel to Cleveland where they will take on Panama at the FirstEnergy Stadium and will later tackle regional rivals Trinidad & Tobago on June 26, in Kansas City at the Children’s Mercy Park.
The head coach called on the country to throw their support behind the team.
“The team can’t do it on their own. We need the fans to get behind us. We need the fans as an extra voice; we need the fans sending positive messages whether it’s via social media, the radio or newspapers.
“You need to know that you are not out there on your own, because we are massively the underdogs. But it gives you great pride, it gives you great resilience when you know you are fighting for a cause and for your fans whom we need to stand united behind the team and get us over this line,” Johnson said.
