Journey to 2022 World Cup Ends: Learning Experience

The country held its collective breath on Friday night as the Belize Jaguars competed against Nicaragua in the CONCACAF Nations League. It was Belize’s final chance to qualify for the World Cup 2022 to be held in Qatar. Led by team captain Deon McCaulay and coach Dale Pelayo, the team was defeated by the Nicaraguan team three – nil and their opportunity to advance this time around gone.  Executive member of the Football Federation of Belize, Marlon Kuylen says the outcome was disappointing.

Marlon Kuylen

Marlon Kuylen, Executive Member, F.F.B.

“It was disappointing to say the least. What’s more upsetting to me was that six of our starters decided not to go on the trip. Of the six, five of them did so a day or two before the trip left so the coaching staff did not have an opportunity to replace them. However, we look beyond just the score. We look at the youths that made the trip, of the seniors that were mentoring these youths and how they performed. If you noticed, we are playing a different style, system of play, where instead of playing defensively and rely only on fast breaks, we’re starting to play the ball from back and we include the goalkeeper in the plays coming up from behind. So we are playing much more possession football. In the last eighteen or so minutes of the game, we held on to the ball quite well; most of the players were the younger athletes, some of them teenagers – seventeen, nineteen. That gives us an indication that the system of play that they have been practicing, because this system we have been using it in the youth national teams, and so it has been working, the players are learning it. And we believe now it is the time now to revamp how we do things, rebuild. And so after our post-mortem, once we get our coaches’ report and our managers’ report, as a federation, as an executive we will sit down and we will plan the way forward.”