Former Golden Jaguars Captain Christopher Nurse has commended regional confederation CONCACAF for providing the avenue for smaller nations such as Guyana to compete at a higher international level through events such as the Nations League and an expanded Gold Cup.
He was speaking during an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday. According to Nurse, 36, “It’s great that CONCACAF have found a way to open up the tournament and make it more accessible and allow a high level of competition that incorporates more of the region and provides positive news for the sport in the region amongst some very testing times. Guyana for sure has the talent. I think the concern is how do we harness that talent now and maximize the potential of the players both home and abroad.”
Guyana is slated to compete in the preliminary round of the 2021 Gold Cup Championship in July, with 16 teams battling for four places in the group round. They are also set to commence their second campaign in League-B of the CONCACAF Nations League in June 2022 during the 2022/2023 cycle.
The former FC Edmonton player served as captain of the national side from 2011-2017 and found the back of the net five times during his playing career as a defensive midfielder. He declared that the recent programmes and initiatives from CONCACAF highlights the entity’s proactive vision in the pursuit of football development across the entire confederation.
Nurse affirmed, “I think these are some great initiatives from CONCACAF, forward thinking and proactive in trying to ensure the game gets up and running as soon as possible. But we really have no idea what the future holds. Today a new record of cases was recorded in the US, so at any time we could again be shut down and isolated.”
According to Nurse, the challenge is to ensure that proper structures are in place so that the benefits of competing at major tournaments are felt and seen locally especially for the future generation of players. He added, “We know locally not much was impacted by the gold cup qualification last year, so the challenge now is to ensure we puts step in place to go one better this time. We have almost qualified for the second time, now can we ensure that the residual impact positively impacts the development of football in Guyana for the next generation.”
He further commended the work of the resident head-coach Marcio Maximo, who has brought and imparted a different work ethic and ideology, much to the benefit of the national programme.
Nurse opined, “I think the head coach has done an admirable job, he is present in Guyana has been working with the youths at ground zero and has shown his commitment through leadership in his own work ethic. So, I think all the ingredients are there for Guyana to have a very fruitful future. The more prevalent Guyana are in these big tournaments encourages the more high-level players to make themselves available and become a part of the player pool. We could see some more reinforcements join the ranks.”
He further stated that the current pandemic will have an adverse effect on the ability of the players to perform at the expected level immediately, adding, “It will take a while for players to regain their condition and the harsh reality is that some players may never regain the condition they might have attained prior to (the coronavirus) because we do not know the impact the virus has had on our bodies and of course this is an endurance sport where your lungs are critical.” (Duncan Saul)
