Tweet
Karl: The game within the game!
Our development as a football power is as far away as the thinking and mindset of our leaders.
An excellent start to traveling the path to success on the world’s football stage occurred in 1994 with the assumption of the top job, president of the Jamaica Football Federation, by Captain Horace Burrell. Captain Burrell moved our football from being a Caribbean also ran to making our national teams consistently at the top of the Caribbean in the FIFA Ranking Charts in the 1994 through 2003 years.
Burrell moved the country’s football to having semi-permanent national teams at all levels. There were concerted efforts at entering all available tournaments for which we could have entered from Caribbean, Concacaf and FIFA competitions. Captain Horace Burrell did more than move our national teams to Caribbean prominence; he set in place the idea that with careful planning our teams could advance to World football final tournaments. Burrell had, judged from the perspective of what held before he came to office, tremendous successes.
In every area of our football successes were pronounced. Referees competences improved to the level where in every arena – CFU, CONCACAF and FIFA – Jamaica now had referees managing football games in tournaments and often handling the competitions' most important matches, the finals.
Women national teams were created and standards of competence improved to a level such that had our teams competing in the penultimate play-offs to attend at FIFA final tournaments.
Our men U-17, U-20 and Senior teams gained entry to the FIFA World Final tournaments.
Our administrators’ competences were improved to levels that brought recognition at CFU, CONCACAF and FIFA levels and appointments were gained, including leadership roles at the various levels, that attested to the tremendous improvements in competence under the Burrell led administrations.
After the earlier timid forays of our footballers to professional and semi-professional leagues outside of the island in the pre-Burrell years, it was during those Burrell 1994-2003 years that the mindset of our local footballers and those who supported our football started to, on a larger scale, seriously consider the possibilities of Football as a Business. The idea of persons involved at various levels of the game being able to find employment and earn decent wages concretized in many minds.
There is the recognition of work done ‘pre-Burrell’; none more so than that done by the Inter-Secondary High Schools and their administrators. It was the organization of the secondary schools football tournaments and work within individual schools that engendered the rabid love for the game and the emotional connection with the game that has spread throughout the entire island. That Secondary High School inculcated involvement and love for the game was the platform from which our emotional attachment to and our passionate love for football came. That passion fueled the will to work at improving standards and increasing benefits derived. Passion alone however can take Jamaica only so far on the road to the pinnacle of world football – to TOP OF THE WORLD football.
If we are all agreed that taking our place at the TOP OF THE WORLD is the aim, then for our players and our national teams to attain such lofty heights it must be that for those who must guide our players and national teams an understanding of the game is paramount.
We are all agreed on the need to improve the imparting, sharing and teaching of improved technical and tactical knowledge to our referees, players and other managers of our football players and teams. There is a willingness to seek out and embrace the new advances in each area that when all is put together makes for creation of good TEAM. Included are areas such as that of sports medicine and caring for the health of players. There is also now an increasing awareness of the need to improve delivery of services as players’ agents, delivery of financial services guidance and other areas. There is, however, one area where we appear to be not taking the game seriously; that area is on-field preparations of players and teams to maximize on maintaining and improving standards of play.
The easiest way to get a jump start on learning how to gain this understanding of the game in this area of preparations is careful study of what the top successful teams have done and observation of what they are currently doing. The suggestion is take a period in time of some top world successful club teams and take a look at some top successful world national senior teams and observe how preparation is continued from one club season to the next and one FIFA World Cup to the next, respectively. The idea of this exercise is take the methods on use of advanced technology and delivery of services mentioned previously as a given and focus on; “The how of preparing the players and teams for improved on-field performances tournament to tournament and tournament through to succeeding tournament'?
Let us first acknowledge what we have been doing with our teams over the years. It is fact that in the past our national teams' players and our club teams' players are brought together mere days before tournaments commence. That is our reality. What then holds for the TOP OF THE WORLD teams?
I admire Arsenal Football Club’s and Manchester United Football Club’s type of club team play and I am a fan of the national team of Brazil and the national team of Germany type and structured play. The play is swift. The players are athletic. The technical levels of the players and the tactical play of the teams are superb. The play is most often during games comprised of thoughtful build ups. Intelligent play is a hallmark. My fervent wish is that the play of our club teams and national teams aspire to firstly attain such levels of play and then to surpass them!
The JFF and our Club leaders may have their preferences of style of play but they could do worse than taking a look at successful world club teams and successful national teams and how those entities arrive at on-field preparations of players and teams that maximize on maintaining and improving standards of play.
Our team managers as practical fact disband our teams out of season and or after tournaments. The successful teams keep the teams playing matches - preparations continue. To win you must know the game. It is hard work to get to the pinacle of world football, but to get there you must understand that game within the game.
Attachment: Matches played by England’s National Senior team after World Cup 2002 through World Cup 2006. It is interesting to note how the team was kept active. Also interesting is how new players were introduced as some were replaced. There was continuity.
Portugal 01/07/2006 L 0-0
Ecuador 25/06/2006 W 1-0
Sweden 20/06/2006 D 2-2
Trinidad And To 15/06/2006 w 2-0
Paraguay 10/06/2006 W 1-0
Jamaica 03/06/2006 W 6-0
Hungary 30/05/2006 W 3-1
Uruguay 01/03/2006 W 2-1
Argentina 13/11/2005 W 3-2
Poland 12/10/2005 W 2-1
Austria 08/10/2005 W 1-0
Northern Ireland 07/09/2005 L 0-1
Wales 03/09/2005 W 1-0
Denmark 17/08/2005 L 1-4
Colombia 31/05/2005 W 3-2
USA 28/05/2005 W 2-1
Azerbaijan 30/03/2005 W 2-0
Northern Ireland 26/03/2005 W 4-0
Holland 09/02/2005 D 0-0
Spain 17/11/2004 L 1-0
Azerbaijan 13/10/2004 W 1-0
Wales 09/10/2004 W 2-0
Poland 08/09/2004 W 2-1
Austria 04/09/2004 D 2-2
Ukraine 18/08/2004 W 3-0
Portugal 24/06/2004 L 2-2
Croatia 21/06/2004 W 4-2
Switzerland 17/06/2004 W 3-0
France 13/06/2004 L 1-2
Iceland 05/06/2004 W 6-1
Japan 01/06/2004 D 1-1
Sweden 31/03/2004 L 0-1
Portugal 18/02/2004 D 1-1
Denmark 16/11/2003 L 2-3
Turkey 11/10/2003 D 0-0
Liechtenstein 10/09/2003 W 2-0
Macedonia 06/09/2003 W 2-1
Croatia 20/08/2003 W 3-1
Slovakia 11/06/2003 W 2-1
Serbia-Monteneg 03/06/2003 W 2-1
South Africa 22/05/2003 W 2-1
Turkey 02/04/2003 W 2-0
Liechtenstein 29/03/2003 W 2-0
Australia 12/02/2003 L 1-3
Macedonia 16/10/2002 D 2-2
Slovakia 12/10/2002 W 2-1
Portugal 07/09/2002 D 1-1
Brazil 21/06/2002 L 1-2
Denmark 15/06/2002 W 3-0
Nigeria 12/06/2002 D 0-0
Argentina 07/06/2002 W 1-0
Sweden 02/06/2002 D 1-1
Cameroon 26/05/2002 D 2-2
South Korea 21/05/2002 D 1-1
Paraguay 17/04/2002 W 4-0
Italy 27/03/2002 L 1-2
Holland 13/02/2002 D 1-1
[B][I]Source: