Golden Jaguars’ Costa Rica encampment underway

Guyana’s senior team, the Golden Jaguars, arrived in Costa Rica ahead of their second and final friendly international match before heading to the USA to fine-tune preparations ahead of the historic debut appearance at the Concacaf Gold Cup, later this month.

The team, led by Head Coach Michael Johnson and his Technical staff, commenced an important period of encampment, which is designed to ensure that the team is properly prepared and peaking in time for Group D matches against the USA, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago.

Team bonding has been getting better by the minute and following their first match against Bermuda on Thursday last in that country, Team Guyana made a long journey to Costa Rica, arriving in the wee hours of Sunday.

The first training session was held on Sunday afternoon at the CAR Turrucares Playfield in San Jose. Johnson informed that despite just getting a few hours rest, everyone is fit and well and the session was satisfying.

“We had to do something today, we knew the lads were tired but we knew we had to do something, bearing in mind that we have a game in 48 hours. So yes it was a long journey but we got some good work in, a bit on how we want to play defensively without the ball, so it was a good session all in all, players have enjoyed it and now we are looking forward to (Monday’s) training session.”

Touching a bit on team bonding, Johnson said it is getting better as the days go by. “I think the most important thing we see in camp is the unity. I’m not with all this local-based and international-based, what I’ve seen over the last week coming together is a unified group; a group that interacts well no matter where they’re from, we all pull on the same shirt to play for one common cause and that’s for Guyana.”

Come the Haiti game, Johnson said they are looking to see improvements on a collective scale reminding that it is not about the result at this juncture of preparations.

“If it were about the result, I’d play the strongest team, I’d play everybody where they should be playing, but for us it‘s about learning and trying to keep something back and just making sure that the players are taking on board all the information we are giving them. The journey continues.” (GFF Release)