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Friday, June 10, 2005
This is the second part of a one-on-one interview done with head coach Wendell Downswell by Mosiah Marshall.
| MM: You are on a winning run right now. Is it 12 games without defeat? Is it a reflection of the quality of the team, or are you just capitalizing on the CONCACAF minnows? WD: Yes, there is quality in this team. We’ve been participating in the Digicel Cup or the Shell Cup for so many years and we have brought teams with players who have had World Cup experience and this is the 3rd that we have won it and the first time we have won it with a high percentage of local-based players participating against 8 teams in the region, so I think that is a fitting testimony. We’ve played other teams in the CONCACAF region and we’ve not been beaten. More recently we played against Honduras and we were down to 9 players, and the team fought gallantly, showed character. Normally, in a game like that and they are down at that level, we used to be humiliated. So therefore, we have seen significant improvement as it relates to that. The Gold Cup will be a true test for us. I’m really looking forward to it, and probably the preparation is not the best of preparations, but we definitely will be giving it our best shot. MM: How do you compare this team to the World Cup team, the Lazaroni/Brown team. WD: That team is a far more superior team in terms of talent. I have no doubt about that, in terms of the talent. We had one of the more talented teams we have ever assembled. It’s just unfortunate that…well, when looking at the games now, especially at this level, the present games in the World Cup (qualifiers), the performance of Trinidad, Panama and Costa Rica, I figure more or less that we should be there. MM: Definitely WD: Definitely should be there. I can’t see us out with the quality of the squad we had there. What we have here are some players who are fully, fully, fully committed to the task. And a fitting testimony to that was the 9 players that we were down to. Football is so funny, y’know. Sometimes you may have the best players but probably not the best team. MM: Who do you like on your present team, not necessarily in terms of your so-called best player, but who applies himself in training, who you think has a future, who… WD: We can look at it from the standpoint of one’s future and we look at it from the standpoint of experience. The Marshalls and others will not be around for a long time, but what we want from them is for the m to demonstrate that for the younger players to make the transition, so that it would e a smooth transition and so that we have quality replacements. That is of crucial importance to our development. That is the role that the senior players are playing now. And like I mentioned, the likes of Claude and others, who came in, that level of maturity and professionalism. In terms of the future direction, we look at the younger now, the qualities that they possess and you probably look 3 or 4 years from now at probably a player like Luton Shelton or Jermaine Taylor and others with a level of experience and exposure. What does the future hold for them? And that now serves a source of inspiration for the younger players, because they have seen players now who are from their respective communities and they can move to a different level. So, that will send a very good signal to the younger players in terms of motivation and the desire to become a national player, because they have seen players coming their own community and who have succeeded. MM: What plans do you have for the development of football? WD: We have pretty major plans. What we have actually done now we’ve started the U-15 program. MM: Are they in camp now? WD: No. What we have done is come up with one of the nest selection processes we have had over the years. We have worked, with the help of Coach (Jackie) Walters, goalkeeper Coach Paul Campbell and Coach Wedderburn what we have actually done is go the respective parishes, work with the parishes, and conduct some little sessions with them, get them to play some games. We then break it down in the Confeds. We have completed 3 Confeds already. We transport players from St. Thomas, Portland and St. Mary down to St. Ann where we have a whole day session where we look at the players, then we identify a squad of 20, and from that 20 we select players who are the elite set of players. We do that throughout the parishes. Now that is part of the whole development process. We will then have a squad of 35, which is the elite set of players. Then we will have another squad of 25 or 30 who have been identified as late developers. So, by the year 2010, these players will be around 19 or 20 years old. This is the second time that we have taken this approach because when we qualified for the U-17 World Cup, the players started at age 15 so what happened there is that they had 2 years of actual formal coaching, rather then we take them 3 or 6 months before they participate in a major tournament. So what we will do is keep each squad actively engaged, especially the late developers. The whole development of it comes with the coaching too. What we are planning now is to conduct a youth course some time in the summer. Coaches from these Confeds will be identified and become an extended part of the coaching staff that will continue to work with these late developers. Take for example, not really at the local level but at the international level, because local experience and international experience is like day and night, but that is part and parcel of the whole development. We will have seminars, we will have coaches that come in from time to time… MM: From abroad? WD: No, local coaches. For example, when the local team is in training they will come in from time to time. Plus you will have international seminars as part of the whole development of the coaches, because it is important that we try and develop these coaches. Then we have the present set of U-17s who have just finished who will become the U-20. Again we will identify another squad and we will have the same process for these players, getting them international experience, international exposure. Within that now, there is a group of 1987-born players. This group is too old for the U-17 and a little bit too young for the U-20. What has happened over the years is that this pool of players just fades away. Into oblivion. Nobody sees them. So what we are going to do now for the present U-20 coming up now, we first have to identify a squad of 25 1987-born and the U-17 players who have made the necessary transition – because what happens when we go to the U-20 tournament is that there is a big difference in one year. One year makes a big difference. We would have 88 and the other countries would all have 90% 87, and that makes a big difference. So what we’ll do now is get these players and start working with them. When we form the U-20 now, there will be another 89 group that will be too old for the U-17 and too young for the U20. So will put another squad in training, an U-18 squad, so they will actually start their training at least 2 to 3 years before their tournament in 2009. MM: It’s a sort of continuous perpetual training. WD: Right. So what we will do now is So that pool of players, probably 100 +, the selection will definitely come from there, apart from overseas-based players who we figure can come in and make a significant contribution. Now that the academy is supposed to come on stream, that will take care of the whole development at the youth level. But will have to happen there now is the clubs will have to play an integral part. MM: In the academy? WD: No, not in the academy, in the whole total development of the players. Because, having identified these players, a large volume of players will have to go to the clubs. They play the U-20s and those who can make the transition to the seniors do so. So therefore, the structure within the club must be there to facilitate the volume of players, to bring them to a higher level. Because if you are going to place the emphasis on local football, separate and apart from when the national team is giving them the exposure, the club league must be extremely competitive. So therefore, the U-20 league, the Premier League and the other leagues that we have, we will have a larger volume of quality players actively engaged. So, the quality in maybe 4 or 5 years from now…and what that does is that we have identified replacements from early. Because if you look at the Whitmores and the others, and the Goodisons, we didn’t channel players who were programming from age 15 or age 12 as their replacements. MM: Are you concerned though that when they make the move to a certain club that they might take a step backward? Because the JFF does not really have a say, or does it, as to the quality coaching that each club has? WD: That is why I mentioned the whole process of developing the coaches, and the structure within the club, to facilitate that. So the JFF now would have to mandate, and they have started that, getting the coaches qualified, qualified staff, qualified administrators in order to facilitate that. It would be useless at the Federation you have probably 100 players in training, getting the experience, getting the exposure, and the other 70% of the time, they must go into an environment that will facilitate the growth and development of football and the players. This means that what we have to do is get the Premier League to a point where we have 8 teams that are extremely competitive. Presently now we have about 4 then we have a gap. So, with these players filtering in the not too distant future, we will start seeing the bar start rising, and it would get far more competitive, both at the U-20 level, the U-21 level, at the senior level and at the schools. And our plan is now to go to U-12. But what we don’t want to do is to go right down to U-12 without creating an impact at the other U-15, put something of quality and substance in place at that level, and then we go to the U-12 where we can identify them from early. This means that by the time they reach the age of 15 you will then know the players who will be ready to make the transition. Because what happens in the past, you find that probably at around age 17 and 20 we start identifying talent. We invest in them there and when you look they are not possible for them to make it because they are too old. MM: That was my next question because I have always been concerned that we don’t have 17, 18 and 19 year olds on our national squad as much as other countries. WD: Well, that’s the simple reason. So what we have to do now is put in a structure. We start at U-15 and go further down to U-12 so we start identifying these players so by the time they play in their first tournament, the U-17, they would have had at least 5 years of coaching, as opposed to when you just take them 6 months. And when they reach U-20 you realise, “These players played in the World Cup or in the U-20. Where are they now?” And we lose resources and it’s not for the benefit of the country or the federation or the players in general. So that is the whole approach that we definitely will be taking in terms of the whole local development of football. And the coaches and the administrators have to play a crucial role in this. That is why I Mentioned the exposure we have to give to the coaches – traveling abroad, getting the international experience, attending the international seminars to get different ideas and different philosophies… MM: You value that sort of thing? WD: Of course! That is crucial to the development of coaches – getting the coaches qualified, having different concepts, different philosophies – and from there now we can sit and develop, and look at the things that are needed in terms of our own structural development. MM: I must commend you. You seem to reward people for good performances in the NPL with tryouts for the national team, maybe more than other coaches in the past. But what about your coaching staff? I know you want a certain stability around you, but do you think you are surrounded by the best available people? WD: As you know, presently, based on the financial condition of the federation. We are looking into identifying people in terms of coaching who we believe can create that impact at the national level. MM: Yes, I think recently some coaches were selected? WD: Yes, and that is why we want to now identify these coaches because what we plan on doing is having seminars. We have now modified the coaching association examination to see how well we can…especially, if you look at the examination that they will be doing, it will take 3 formats. Prior to that they just did the theory. Now they have practical, theory and oral, so we get a good grasp of the coach as to what their problems might be. And you have group work, individual work, so we get more in depth to see what the coaches possess. MM: Is it important to have a coaches association? WD: Yes. I think what we should do is try and lobby for something like that. Myself and Coach Vin Blaine – I think St. Catherine is the only parish now that has a coaching association – I hope that we can get that to spread across the island, and once we can get that on stream, it will put us on the right path. The coaches’ voice should be heard. MM: I know you mentioned about the development system that will automatically help schoolboy football. Is there any other thing could raise that level? WD: I think the clubs. The clubs will have to play a crucial role in that. One of the recommendations I will make to the respective clubs is, if they can get their players to go into their communities and start interacting with the youngsters between 10 and 15 and identify young talent. MM: So you think the clubs could do more then? WD: Yes, yes, I think they could, because they have the players, after they are finished playing, there isn’t much that they do. Imagine a club, looking at the players they have, going into the schools, in the community, start conducting sessions with them, because they will be more readily identified and associated with the communities than the JFF. The youngsters look up them and they can create that impact, identifying talent and the clubs would stand to benefit. Just imagine if every club should do something like that and what it does for our football! Identify the talent at a younger age and start nurturing that talent. I’m absolutely certain that that would pay an integral role in the development of Jamaica’s football. MM: What about the academy, what kind of age groups will be there? To be continued |