Hinterland talent spotted at GFF U20 talent ID programme says Dover

 Wayne `Wiggy’ Dover
Wayne `Wiggy’ Dover

Golden Jaguars U20 Men’s head-coach Wayne Dover has confirmed that eight players were shortlisted from the Rupununi leg of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) talent identification programme, which ran from September 10 to 12 at the St. Ignatius ground in Central Rupununi, Region Nine.

This was disclosed by the head-coach during an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday. According to Dover, “The hinterland, which always has a vast number of players with great potential to any national team at any level and having done that talent ID there, we spotted at least eight players to come for further evaluation. Having submitted the names to the GFF, they will now make the necessary arrangements and have them travel to the city for further evaluation. That is the phase we are at before naming the final local group.”

He added, “We see many players and more of them are on the offensive side, we saw particularly one player who displayed a very good understanding of the central holding midfield role. That was eye catching.”

The GFF commenced a talent ID programme on local shores to scout players in preparation for the 2022 Concacaf Men’s U20 Championship Qualifiers in November. A talent ID leg will also occur in the United States of America from September 24 to 26.

The first day featured players from the Georgetown, East Bank Demerara, West Bank/Coast Demerara, and East Coast Demerara football associations, while the second day consisted of individuals from the Berbice, Bartica, Essequibo/Pomeroon and the Upper Demerara football associations. Both sessions were held at the National Training Centre, Providence. The official Concacaf draw for the U20 Qualifiers is slated to occur tomorrow.

Dover noted that evaluations were conducted following the end of the first phase, which resulted in the initial number of shortlisted players being reduced, adding that the number of shortlisted players currently stands at 43.

He explained, “At the end of the first phase, we then had four other evaluation sessions which resulted in omissions. The number got reduced to 20. Because of the other areas we scouted and found talents like Linden, Essequibo and Berbice, we then found 15 more players that we invited to be evaluated further. That increased the number back to 35, and the eight from the Lethem leg took us to 43 players.”

According to the former Golden Jaguars senior men’s head-coach, training sessions are ongoing at the National Training Centre with the majority of the shortlisted individuals, and that the management team intends to reduce the present cadre of players to 30 ahead of their North American talent ID phase later in the month.   

“We are continuing this week, we had a session Monday, Wednesday, today, and it concludes on Saturday. Currently they will be 35 in training given that the Rupununi players will come in for the new week. We will then continue to reduce the squad to a manageable amount of 26 to 30 players. We would like to keep a squad of 30 for training. After this week, we will reduce the squad to around 22, with the eight Lethem players adding to that number.”