National Team has Local Coach…

Earlier in the newscast, we reported that the Belmopan Bandits have been replaced in the 2014-2015 CONCACAF Champions League. That is news is followed by more bad news because up until today, the national team that is set to participate in the 2014 UNCAF Tournament in September, has been functioning without a coach.  As incredible as it sounds, there was a glitch in securing the release of the players to train. Notwithstanding, F.F.B. President, Ruperto Vicente, confirmed to the media today that while there have been several international coaches that have showed interest in coaching the national team, the federation has decided to take on Belizean Phillip Marin as Acting Coach with Edmond Pandy and Freddy Tun as part of the coaching staff.

Ruperto Vicente, President, F.F.B.

Ruperto Vicente

“Our national does not have a head coach right now. We are going to fix that today. We had gotten a coach from Mexico, but because we are dealing with a lot of national teams, we were late in sending out the letters for the players to get their time off from work to be here for the national team. And so the Mexican coach thought that they would have come in on Monday; they did not come in on Monday, they came in on Tuesday of the week before. So the Mexican coach decided that since he did not see the players, informed us that since the players were not coming and only a few players were coming, that he was going back home. So what we are doing now is that we are working with our local coaches in preparing this team. So we have Mister Phillip Marin who had just come back from training in Germany as a coach. So he is at this point acting as head coach for our national team; we believe that he can prepare them and he has the respect of the players. We are also looking to him and Mister Edmond Pandy to be a part of the coaching team as well as Mister Freddy Tun, who will be the people running the national team. At this point, it is late to get an international coach to come in even though we have people requesting. Just this morning, I got a call from the German coach who wants to come to Belize and we also have a coach in the United States who would want to work with our national team. He lives in Miami, but we believe that it is too late for us to get a coach and prepare our team adequately.”

Star striker, Deon McCauley, who was signed earlier this year to a U.S. football team, the Silverbacks, will not be participating in the games.