Gayle in race against time to select U-20 squad
With the Concacaf Under-20 Men’s Championship set to kick off in just over a month’s time, coach Marcel Gayle is in a race against time to put a team together and finalise his squad for the June 18-July 3 tournament.
Gayle, who was assigned to the post in March, has only had a few training camps with the young players, and with the competition fast approaching, would like to have the players for a prolonged period in order to put the best team together.
However, due to the financial constraints of the federation, he is unable to put the team together as quickly as he would like.
“We have been together about three weeks. We have had a few camps, looking at players but we are still putting the pieces together.
“We were hoping that we could have a team at this juncture so we could start to really prepare the team and just focus on fine-tuning things that we need going into the tournament.
“But, hopefully, everything can fall into place in time before the start of the competition,” he said. Gayle who is also the coach of Waterhouse FC, said he is still scouting for a centre forward and a defensive midfielder and will continue looking at both local and overseas-based players.
At last week’s camp, seven overseas players were invited and he disclosed that another set have been invited to the next camp.
Nevertheless, his hope is to have a final squad in the next two to three weeks.
“We are still short up front because we do not have a specialist number nine and we also want a number six. “There are a number of other players we are looking at who we think can help us but for now we are mainly looking for a number nine and a number six. “This is the highest level at this age group. We will be playing against semi professional and professional players. So, hopefully, we can get things together and get it right in a few weeks time,” Gayle said.
The under-20s will face Premier League outfit Arnett Gardens in a practice game today.