CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship Bahamas 2017
Oct 18, 2016, , http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....onship-bahamas-2017/
Guyana has been drawn in Group A of the CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship Bahamas 2017 following the draw which took place at the Intercontinental Hotel in Doral, Florida, USA, yesterday.
Guyana was represented at the Draw by Guyana Beach Football Association (GBFA) President Rollin Tappin and Head Coach Abdullah Hamid who will also attend the CONCACAF Beach Soccer Workshop which would take place today and tomorrow.
The draw, which determined the groups and match schedule for the tournament that kicks off on February 20, in Nassau, was opened with welcoming remarks from Philippe Moggio, CONCACAF General Secretary and Anton Sealey, President of the Bahamas Football Association.
The event was conducted with the assistance of Bahamas National Team players Gavin Christie and Leslie St. Fleur.
The Golden Jaguars will face host Bahamas, Jamaica and Belize.
In Group B, defending CONCACAF Beach Soccer champion Mexico was joined by Guatemala, Canada and Guadeloupe, while United States, Trinidad & Tobago, Antigua & Barbuda and US Virgin Islands make up Group C. El Salvador will be in Group D with Costa Rica, Panama and Turks & Caicos Islands.
The Malcom Beach Soccer Facility will host all group, quarter-final, semifinals, third place and final matches.
The champion and the runner-up of the competition will join host Bahamas as the three CONCACAF representatives in the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 2017.
In case Bahamas (host of the World Cup) and/or Guadeloupe (Non-FIFA Member) reach the final match, the World Cup spot(s) will be allocated to the next best placed team(s).
In an effort to further develop Beach Soccer, each one of the sixteen participating Member Associations are guaranteed to play six games, with all competing for final tournament placement, until the last match date.
For the draw, the Participating Member Associations were separated into pots of four balls according to the Beach Soccer World Wide Ranking dated September 2016.
The draw started by selecting from a separate pot, which contained the five teams with the same exact ranking (38).
These teams were drawn and placed into Pots 3 and 4 respectively to complete the distribution of the teams into those Pots. The teams were then drawn into the four groups, from those final pots of four teams each.
GBSA President Rollin Tappin in commenting on the drawn believes that Guyana is in with an excellent chance of doing well.
”Guyana stands a chance of coming out of the group into the knock-out rounds once we play to our potential.
We believe that we can get past the countries in our group and are very excited by the draw. The coaching staff will pull out all the stops in getting the players ready for the tournament and we are looking forward to competing for the first time at the Beach Soccer level.”