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Karl
Senior Member
USA
914 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 23 2005 : 12:42:42 PM
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TALENT HUNT - Downswell looking outside the NPL for national players
By GORDON WILLIAM, Contributor
Big forward Newton Sterling (left) who came into the national team from Super League club Real Mona. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer
JAMAICA IS CASTING a wider net in the hope of catching football talent previously hidden outside the nation's top league.
Head national coach Wendell Downswell explained that added focus of his talent search will be on players not linked to National Premier League (NPL) clubs, which usually furnish the bulk of national players.
"What I'll do from time to time is do some scouting, looking at players at the lower level leagues," Downswell said recently. "There may be others out there. No doubt there is more talent outside the NPL."
Players not playing in the top national league have represented Jamaica before, but not many, and those who do make it are often limited to the age group teams, like the under-15, under-17 and under-20. That is changing, said the head coach.
"Before, all the emphasis was on selection from the NPL," Downswell explained. "What we want to now emphasise is a broader look."
A most recent example of the new approach was the surprise inclusion of Newton Sterling in Jamaica's squad which recently won the Digicel Caribbean Cup in Barbados. Although, Downswell said, Sterling had represented Jamaica at the youth level before, he had never played for the senior team before, being called up from Real Mona, a club competing in the Super League, which is a notch below the NPL. Sterling, who played as a striker, started the final game against Cuba in Barbados.
Turnaround
The new approach by the national coaching staff represents almost a full revolution in team selection methods. Decades ago Jamaicans often complained that only players from more affluent family backgrounds were invited to represent the country. When that changed, others rued that only players from the Corporate Area were selected to play for national teams. When more rural-based players were included, there was talk that only players from certain top level clubs were being considered for selection.
According to Downswell, that perception too must change. He is confident that there are talented players not associated with the big clubs in Jamaica.
"Players will look good, but playing for remote clubs they never get a look," he explained. "Now all the possible talents will be on parade and we can unearth that."
Downswell's plan, which is already underway, includes organising more trial matches in each of the Jamaica Football Federation's (JFF) confederations.
This will allow players to be invited, after being identified by JFF talent scouts, to showcase their skills for the national coaches. From that pool, promising players will be selected to possibly two squads, the coach said, one featuring younger players probably under-20s; and the other with "late developers" players in their 20s.
The system has shown early success. Downswell said young national players like Jermaine Taylor, Rudolph Austin and Mario Harrison, along with others from the national under-20 team, were among those who benefited from the scouting/trial system. He also explained that the system is especially valuable to the youth programme and will be conducted with that in mind.
"We started with this present crop of under-20s, but now we will expand," said Downswell, a former senior head national coach and player who was in charge of Jamaica's most recent under-20 team and later succeeded Carl Brown and Sebastiao Lazaroni to again lead the senior team.
"We want to structure that at under-15, under-17 and under-20," he added. "That is so important."
Gordon Williams is a Jamaican journalist based in the United States. |
Karl |
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Downswell looking outside the NPL
