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Jaguars Return Home From Nations Cup; No Parades This Time
Thu, September 11, 2014
Yesterday, the Belize National Team, the Jaguars, played their third and final match of the UNCAF Copa Centroamericana - or Nations Cup in Houston, Texas. It was a matchup against El Salvador, and at the end of the 94 minutes of play time, the Jaguars lost that match with a score of two-nil - the third game in a row in which two goals had been scored on Belize.

So, in the overall tournament, Belize placed last, a heartbreaking defeat, when just last year, the team placed fourth and in so doing, qualified for the Gold Cup.

But there is no glory this year, just last place, 7th out of 7, so today, when the team returned home, we got a reaction from them about the dismal performance.

Leroy Sherrier - Head Coach, National Team
"We play better that the last tournament and we had the opportunity to put some young guys to play and that was satisfactory for me, so I feel good because it's very difficult to change players to bring in new players to put in the player line - it's very hard and this time I feel good because Casey and Delon and some other young players get their big opportunity."

Reporter
"Coach it's almost as if though we are parading losses though. At the end of the day as fans of football we want to see optimal performance."

Leroy Sherrier - Head Coach, National Team
"Well it depends on your perspective. We start practice two weeks ago. I took over the team 2 weeks ago. The last time was 3 months and what we did, the way we played football this time in just two weeks I feel very good. Just imagine if we had 3-4 months practicing."

Shane Orio - Goal Keeper, National Team
"We know that there is lots of thing back home that we need to train our national team and it's not an excuse, but our national team only trained for 2-3 weeks and that's a big difference. We need to change that because I am in Guatemala and the Guatemala national team have been training for at least two months and a half, so again we didn't win any game but I think that it was one of the best show Belize had. Again, with individual mistakes, like my mistake in the second goal, like Smith auto goal and Jaro auto goal. But hopefully the country can see what happened and what we did and to be proud of the guys."

Player
"I think if we had more time together we would have played better and we would had have a better game, but you have to blame that on other people, you can't blame that on us."

Ian Gaynair - Defence, Belize National Team
"I think if you are not well prepared for this kind of thing, this is the result and I think we are the team that belongs to come back home because we weren't well prepared. I am tired to just going to participate and have to come back home as the tournament is finish. To be the first team to come back, it really hurts to know that you are trying and that you are getting older and then your career is finishing in football. I just wish that next time we are well prepared to play those tournaments. I don't think I will do that again if we call a camp in 3 weeks or a month - I don't think I will participate in that because that is just participation - that is not to compete and reach the next level. Everything I get in I always want to win. But nevertheless I still will not hold my head down because I know that all of us went out there and we tried. We only work 2-3 weeks together like that and we did our best still."

Woodrow West - Goal Keeper, National Team
"The preparation was very poor and I believe that was the failing point for us and comparing to the last tournament we were well prepared and we did have better players than what we have now, but we were in condition to compete against those guys and that's why we were qualified that time. We had about 3 weeks of training and problem with coaching; our coach came in like 1-2 weeks before the tournament. I think that is where we fail to qualify in this tournament."

Daniel Ortiz
"The first game we took of our own goals. What was your reaction in seeing that? We lost by those two goals when we could have gotten a point. That must have hurt."

Leroy Sherrier - Head Coach, National Team
"I don't want to point fingers. It hurts, but nobody tried to score a goal intentionally."

Woodrow West - Goal Keeper, National Team
"It wasn't an embarrassment. It's part of football. It happen on the highest level in the world. It was disappointing because if that didn't happen we could have gotten a point out of that game."

Daniel Ortiz
"How does a player come back from that mentally when you scored a goal and it has counted against you?"

Dalton Eiley - Defence, National team
"It's hard, you just need to rise above it, you have others games to play. I think the first game was an example of that. We had Jaro James and Elroy Smith and Elroy Smith is one of our biggest player here in Belize and Jaro came in and he did his work and you just have to put it behind you and move on. You have more games to play."

Marlon Kuylen - Executive Member, FFB
"Myself as all our fans and our Belizeans at home and abroad we have a high expectation. We expect that every time we play we at least draw or win. Unfortunately this time it did not happen. When you have problems at the top, it trickles down. The FFB has to take a lot of blame for this."

The countries which have qualified for the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup are Costa Rica and Guatemala, which will compete against each other for 1st place, and El Salvador and Panama, which will compete for third place. The fifth and final qualifier will emerge from the fifth place match between Honduras and Nicaragua. These 3 final matches will take place on September 13 on Los Angeles.

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