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Karl
Senior Member
USA
914 Posts |
 Posted - Jun 17 2006 : 02:19:26 AM
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Saturday, June 17, 2006
A feature of the ongoing 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany is the high quality of the fields. The carpet-like surfaces have fully facilitated the kind of ballerina-style artistry with which Argentina demolished Serbia & Montenegro 6-0 yesterday.
Such fields are taken for granted in countries with healthy football cultures. Perhaps nothing quite underlines the extent to which Jamaica lacks that culture than the fact that today, eight years after the Reggae Boyz made history by participating in the World Cup finals in France, there exists here only one football field of undeniable international quality - the National Stadium.
With all due respect to our top clubs such as Waterhouse, Harbour View, Arnett Gardens and Tivoli Gardens, which have made conscious efforts to improve their surfaces, our best fields outside of the National Stadium are second class at best.
And unfortunately, even at the level of our premier league, many football games are being played on surfaces of a far lower level - woeful at best. In the lower leagues and at the youth level, in schools and clubs, the situation is even worse, with footballers often being asked to learn and practice their craft on bumpy, grassless surfaces covered by dirt and stones.
Clearly, it is close to impossible to properly develop and hone skills on such surfaces. For one thing, even the most able will need several touches to bring the ball under control. It soon becomes habit. And that player, even when he finds himself on the 'billiard table' fields which we have been privileged to witness via our television screens, will find himself taking time to bring the ball under control.
But football is about time and space. The best practitioners control the ball with one touch and they will severely punish those who don't.
It's an indictment on the stewardship of the Crenston Boxhill-led Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) that while pledging to develop youth football and to take Jamaica's football forward they have done next to nothing in terms of the surfaces on which our youngsters play.
We are aware that the JFF has chronic money problems. But it's not just about money. It's also about cajoling and encouraging and doing all you can to ensure that available resources, regardless of the source, are spent in the correct areas.
Of course, the Boxhill administration is not alone in their shortsightedness. Those that went before were also guilty of putting the cart before the horse. So that rather than using money earned from the World Cup to establish a proper and dedicated playing facility - perhaps the much talked about academy - the JFF, then led by Captain Horace Burrell, chose to invest in a showy New Kingston multi-storey building as its headquarters.
Indeed, before that, in 1997 when Jamaica qualified for the World Cup, the colourful Brazilian coach Rene Simoes, laughingly said that the country had achieved something that was completely illogical. It was, he said, like a builder who had chosen to install his roof before setting the foundation.
The recent embarrassing 'lashings' at the hands of England and Ghana - even while taking into account that those were teams at the peak of their form in preparation for the World Cup while the Reggae Boyz weren't - should serve as yet another strong signal to the JFF and others that urgent action is needed to develop Jamaica's football.
We would suggest that an all-out campaign to improve playing surfaces is a good place to start.
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Karl |
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Observer Editorial: Starting from the surface
