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Originally posted by Karl

Midfield the key, say experts
... Reggae Boyz will win if creative players do well
Observer Reporters
Saturday, June 19, 2004

Jamaica's football experts agree that for the Reggae Boyz to come out on top of their Haitian rivals in tomorrow's crucial CONCACAF World Cup qualifier at the National Stadium, the team's creative players must click. In their 1-1 tie against their Caribbean neighbours in Miami a week ago, Jamaica often seemed more intent on survival than victory.

Here the experts reflect on the Miami performance and give their views on what needs to be done tomorrow if the Boyz are to stay on course on their "Journey to Germany".

Allie McNab, former national coach and player: Certainly the injuries played a part in the composition of the team in the last match, so it was difficult for the coach. What pegged us back was when we conceded that penalty in the first 20 seconds of the match and the team went into a defensive mode. Clearing the ball in English style totally eliminated our midfielders ... And that set the tone for the game. Adding to that, this was the first game of a World Cup campaign and playing (away) certainly brought on the nerves. I thought Haiti looked more organised ... I thought that Ricardo Fuller, with his injury, was about 65 percent of his best and it showed up more when a hard-running Damani Ralph came on the field and did his thing. I also thought that Ricardo Gardner was not as mobile as he normally is.

Coach Brown will have to make some changes. I would like a miracle, to see a Tyrone Marshall (injured) in this team. Since Peter Cargill, Tyrone Marshall is the only one that has played that holding midfield position with any authority. Richard Langley should come into that midfield, as his hard work and tackling will make a difference. There is talk that a Theodore Whitmore could come back in midfield. I have always said that Whitmore should play the attacking midfield role rather than the defensive midfield position. Overall I am quite sure that Jamaica cannot play as badly as they did in Miami.
Jamaica should win and by at least two clear goals.

Lloyd Williams, coach of Village United:

This (tomorrow's game) is a whole different scenario. Coach Brown may have played for a draw last Saturday. Certain aspects of the game were questionable. Firstly, I don't understand why the players are going to play in Miami and went to England to prepare.

Secondly it was obvious that Fuller was injured and the goal scorer was taken off instead of him. The ball was not coming from the midfield, the ball was being playing from the defenders upfront. Fuller was not helped by this ploy. Fuller plays better when he receives the balls behind the defence. I think that Fabian Taylor should be given the nod because of his style of play. He is a forward that fights for the ball and will win it. This cannot be said of Fuller and Jermaine Johnson who depend on players to supply the ball at their feet.
Another question mark is that in all of our practice matches we played a 4-4-2 formation except for a couple minutes in the Venezuela game. We played a 5-3-2 formation against the Haitians and looked out of sorts. We cannot afford to lose to Haiti and stumble out of the World Cup, but at the same time we cannot crucify Carl.

Clyde Jureidini, general manager, Harbour View FC: We were too defensive in the Miami game which encouraged the Haitians to attack us for too long. The players who had leadership roles were below their best level of fitness and sharpness. They weren't able to individually perform the roles that they had responsibility for or to lead the team at crucial points in time, and as a result the secondary persons assumed leadership and because of that the team performed below its best. To give away two penalties in a game is a mistake we cannot afford to repeat. We should have gone into that match with the aim of scoring two goals, instead of looking to score only one.

For Sunday we have to be more assertive, we have to try and repeat our performances in the games leading up to this tie and to do this we must use that core of players who better understand team work. The top four players must take a more aggressive approach ... and look to score goals in the first 20 minutes of each half of the game as against conceding goals.
The selection of the team and the substitutions should be more tailored to performance rather than survival like we did in Miami. I would like to see Jermaine Johnson and Andy Williams in the game. Williams plays his best game in the first 20 minutes. I would like to see Fabian Davis in the midfield, but I would have no problem if he goes to the right flank because we need crosses. We must have sustained attacks on this Haitian team and let them stay in defence.

Glendon 'Admiral' Bailey, coach of National Premier League champions, Tivoli Gardens: I thought the Haitians concentrated a lot on our left side and their attacks were most effective down that side where young Garfield Reid played... I also don't believe that we moved the ball around, and we played too many long balls... The substitutions were not as effective as I know they can be. On Sunday (tomorrow), I think we need a central midfielder who is going to come and take this ball from the defenders and distribute it to the forwards. If Whitmore is fit, he could be the player or we could use an Andy Williams. So if we get these guys back in the midfield I think we will have a better game. We have to watch Fuller because he's carrying an injury and we need to stick with Marlon King and let him run at them. I don't know what the situation is with Jermaine Johnson, but he's good coming off the bench, giving us that extra push upfront as he's a player who runs at defenders. In the last game we did not have anybody running at the Haitian defence. For us to succeed in this one, the midfield has to come better.

Donovan Hayles, coach of Harbour View FC: Watching the game on television you don't get that wide perspective of the overall performance of the team, so you are not seeing what is developing outside of the play... But based on what I saw, the effort was fair and the result was good, but it would have been better with a victory. In that game the players in the midfield were not the creative type, with the exception of Fabian Davis. The area that needs improvement is our attacking. When we played Uruguay it was really heart-warming to see how the team moved postively in attack. If we can recapture that form, then we should do well. I would like to see a Fuller, Gardner, Fabian Taylor and also Damani Ralph. But whatever we do, we have to get back into the attacking mode.

Lebert Halliman, coach of all-island schoolboy champions, Excelsior High School:
I won't kill them for last Saturday.
They looked flat and probably they did a lot of physical work which brought them into the game flat, so you just have to bypass that performance. I think they have crossed that boundary now and come Sunday you are going to see the best of them. The Haitians have some quick players, but this is a smaller field, so those long balls with space won't be available. They will have to knock it around more and I don't think they will get that much space to do it. We are very comfortable, playing at home on a smaller field and getting rid of the butterflies. However, we need to play with a sweeper, the flat back four I don't think will work, we don't have the players to play it. I would use a 5-3-2 formation with Ziadie as sweeper, Claude and "Pepe" (Goodison) at central defence, "Bibi" (Gardner) at left back and Fabian Davis at right back. In the middle I would use Andy (Williams), (Richard) Langley and Whitmore, and upfront I would use the same two strikers that played in the first leg - Fuller and King... That would be my starting 11, because now that we are playing at home and we have the lead, we would want to ensure that we maintain that lead and don't allow them to score on us, so we should try to attack. This formation is not a defensive system because you have attacking players such as Bibi and Fabian, and once you have two strong centre halves such as Claude and "Pepe", that would give your midfielders more comfort and freedom to utilise all their skills. In addition, Fuller needs people like these to provide him with balls. He doesn't like the big, long kicks where he has to be chasing for 90 minutes.

Dr Dean Weatherly, coach of Cornwall College:

Carl (Brown) and his coaching team must realise that Jamaicans have now become accustomed to winning. It's not like the pre-Simoes era ... I realise there is a problem of indiscipline in the camp, also a lack of commitment. Carl is known as a disciplinarian, but the demeanour of the players was not suggesting that. This does not augur well for the team. It does not look good on him ... Tactically, it (the game) was very poor. I did not see a game plan and the blind could see Haiti's game plan. But the team should not despair. In the first half especially, the defence was poorly organised. We were not man-marking, nobody picking up the tackles, we were just selling ourselves.

I would not start Gardner since he was out of football for so long. I would have taken out Fuller because the ball was not coming to him down the flank behind the defenders and that is how he loves it.

I would have probably introduced Ralph earlier... Andy Williams should have probably been entered before Theodore Whitmore.

We were not penetrating the 18-yard box in numbers. I think that the Haitians are very erratic and we may have won a penalty or two if we were attacking in numbers. We should be able to pull it off (tomorrow), though.

- Sean Williams, Horace Hines, Ian Burnett

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