On Friday, 6 March, the Cayman Islands Women’s National Team faced a difficult result in their most recent CONCACAF W Qualifiers match hosted at the Truman Bodden Sports Complex.
The match, which serves as the continuation of the qualifying process for the 2026 CONCACAF W Championship, saw the 32nd-ranked Cayman squad fall 13-0 to a 16th-ranked Guatemala.
The result followed an earlier Group C defeat last November, where the Cayman side lost 4-0 to 14th-ranked Bermuda.
‘The ruthlessness of our opponents’
Following the loss, Michael Johnson, Cayman’s head coach, acknowledged the results of the match.
“Firstly, I would like to congratulate Guatemala on their win. They really showed the difference between the teams in quality, experience and level,” Johnson said.
“From the get-go, we understood the difficulty of the task, but what really stood out was the ruthlessness of our opponents to punish the smallest of mistakes we made individually and tactically,” he added.
He acknowledged the need “to analyse and continue to improve our players”, but also highlighted the fact that the current squad remains very young, with the majority of players still in high school.
“With this in mind, we have to be patient and not put unrealistic expectations at these young girls’ doorsteps. The experience they would have gained playing against seasoned professionals in the sport, who play at the highest level of our sport, will only be a positive one and will show them the level they need to be at if they one day wish to play professionally,” he said.
Cayman will now prepare for two remaining fixtures next month as they are scheduled to face Costa Rica, followed by Grenada.
Johnson acknowledged Costa Rica’s third-place position in the CONCACAF rankings behind the USA and Canada, stating that this match will “show an even higher level to Guatemala”.
Regardless of this wide gap, he said the focus remains on the Cayman squad training every day to prepare for these upcoming fixtures.
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