Starr Humphreys from the community of Dublanc will lead the national U20 female squad in the upcoming Concacaf qualifiers in the Dominican Republic.
Humphreys who is no stranger to the national side, captained the U17 team some years back.
According to her, while preparation time was short the management team did their best.
“Well the coaching staff did a wonderful job with the team in preparation in a short space of time and I believe we can do anything we put our mind to. We have a very difficult zone but we will do our best with the help of the coaching staff and the support of our country. We are in a zone with the Dominican Republic who were u20 champions and Guyana and Suriname. We are in a group amongst the best, they train year round, so it will be a lot more pressure but we up for the challenge”.
Starr says that she is up to the task and that her strongest trait is her knowledge of the game and also knowing her teammates; their strengths and weaknesses. She is excellent at pushing and motivating her teammates to their maximum potential and helping them learn the game better while leading them. She recognizes that sometimes the job of captain can be difficult if players don’t cooperate and put drama and ego ahead of the mission but she believes that leading the U20 squad will be an easy one since they listen and look up to her as leader. She anticipates working with the Head Coach to archive something great for Dominica.
She adds, “I wish we had more time to train. We did good in the 2 months but I think we could have done a lot more if we had time. While I’m a bit nervous I’m excited to see my team execute what we have learnt and make the coaches proud because they have put in as much sweat and tears as us”.
When asked if she had one bit of advice for the Dominica Football Association, she had this to say, “Well I believe they shouldn’t wait when a tournament is coming to start preparing because then we fall behind other teams. At least have women’s league and different stuff to keep the females active. Too many times they wait last minute to gather girls to train and having them to push 10 times harder”.The U20 Nature Girls take on the Dominican Republic, who won the competition last year, on April 15, Guyana on April 17 and Suriname on the 19.
