Only the best, please selectors
says Steve Ninvalle
Stabroek News
June 24, 2002
A 23-member squad of footballers has been selected to go into training for possible selection on a team for the CONCACAF Gold Cup preliminaries.
While it is applaudable that the GFF took time out to make sure that the players commenced early training, one cannot brush aside the belief that the selectors have wasted an excellent opportunity to call the nation’s best senior footballers to trial.
A glance at the list of selectees would not only leave one perplexed about the criteria for selection but lead one to believe that the selectors were in a state of somnolence when picking the squad.
There are a few absent names which may rise eyebrows but two are glaring. How then can one account for the absence of Matthew `Assassin’ Pollard and Collie Hercules in a squad of 23.
It is as plain as day that based on Pollard’s record he should be included in any senior national line up. He is the leading goal scorer in the last league run by the Upper Demerara Football Sub Association.
In addition the `Assassin’ whose pseudonym speaks for itself, scored 16 goals in the Federation Cup organised by the GFF and copped the highest goalscorer award.
He polished that off by scoring twice against the German University side. Pollard is just 25-years-old. If those are not enough grounds for his selection on the 23 man squad then what else is?
Hercules on the other hand has been given the cold shoulder by many outside of Linden because of reticence and sometimes introverted behaviour but that does not say that he is not one of the best strikers around.
In fact former national coach Dereck `Slight’ Whyte went on record saying that at present he would not call any squad without including the `Hitman’.
The 26-year-old Hercules is one of a handful of local players with professional experience. The last time a senior national side represented Guyana, Hercules netted the most goals for this country. And remember goals win matches.
So what are the selectors looking for? Youth? experience? Or does it go deeper? Both Hercules and Pollard are young by football standards and in the case of the former there is an abundance of experience.
One would only hope that the selectors, whoever they be, put Guyana first by returning to the drawing board to call up the best. It could save Guyanese a lot of embarrassment.