By Leon C. Guild
Our female Jaguars have just returned from Curacao where they were playing in the U20 CONCACAF Championship which also served as qualifiers for the World Championship. In an interview with Head Coach, Mr. Wayne Casimiro, the Coach for the female Senior Team, he explained that they only found out about the event early in the year.
The scouting for talent began almost immediately as selection tryouts were held and by this past June they had covered Toledo to Corozal in the search. The team was finalized and by July the girls were brought into camp on weekends and the training had started. Of course, like all good coaches who plan, the time span of 48 sessions between recruitment and game time had to be divided into cycles, which would allow peak performance by the time the event starts.
It seems training went along smoothly and the only challenges faced this time was the constant swabbing and containment of players under the Covid protocols. This was compounded when closer to flight date key players could not make the trip since they were detained.
The show must go on, however, and upon arriving in Grenada on Saturday before the game on Wednesday the suspense must have been killing the young team as in the first game against Suriname mistakes were made which caused them to lose the that game. Of note here is that in any activity where at the end you will be described as ‘winner’ and some else as ‘loser’ there is a key difference between one being defeated and losing.
Casimiro believes that as the team is new and young, maybe, just maybe arriving in Grenada a little closer to game time perhaps would have been better. After the game he allowed the team to rest properly and at breakfast the following morning a postmortem of the first game was held with the players at which time the girls were able to speak freely about the breakdown.
The post mortem was along with training in the evening of the same day was the turning point as the following day in the game against hosting team Grenada the girls made an astonishing 6 – 1 victory.
Casimiro says he doesn’t like playing defensive very early in the game and had he adjusted his strategy in the first game he probably would have been able to defend the 2-1 lead the Suriname had against them at half time.
Grenada stepped up their game in the second half but by this time Casimiro already knew that this one was ours. He made a few adjustments here and there and compensated well as Grenada was only able to sustain their pressure for about 10 minutes before they collapsed under the weight of the Belize Team.
The girls still could have loaded Grenada with even more goals to claim and even greater victory but all things in due time. Grenada scored a consolation goal at almost at the end of the game due to a little break in the communication.
The Coach wants to congratulate the entire team on what he calls a “g’od damn job well done!!” And also extends his thanks and gratitude to the Technical Staff of the federation, the Coaching staff and Belize on a whole for supporting with all positive vibrations.
Wayne said he is hoping to recruit some of the girls for the Senior National Team as in November of this year they play El Salvador I El Salvador and also in November the Panama Female team comes to Belize.