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><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt">JAMAICA’S SENIOR FOOTBALL TEAM……… A TEAM IN TRANSITION……. CHALLENGES AND IMMENSE POTENTIAL<o
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><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">(This is the second of a series of articles from the Jamaica Football Federation. Next we look at Coaching Realities in Jamaica)<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o
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><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The focus of the nation over the last few weeks on the Senior National Men’s team necessitated a holding back of the promise to do a feature on the team.<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o
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><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This was a conscious decision because it allows us to look at the very complex issues surrounding the senior team with the distinct advantage of recent actual play and performance in varying circumstances……… at home and away, in conditions of a tournament as against friendly internationals, with all local based players on one hand and with the ‘foreign legion’, so named by the media, combined with the local based players in another.<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o
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><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">This presented a good combination of circumstances to do a realistic review with real life play as the guide as opposed to speculation.<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o
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><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">These set of circumstances combined with our knowledge as to what had taken place with this Senior team over the last two years, i.e. winning the Caribbean Cup in 2005, fairly good results against teams like Guatemala and then playing games against better opposition, USA (draw) England,(loss), Ghana (loss) should, I stress should, allow for a more objective analysis.<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><o
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><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Over the last fortnight we have seen the team win two of the three Digicel Caribbean Cup matches with a team comprised totally of our locally born, grown and exposed talent but not doing well enough to move forward to the next round.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A similar situation existed with the away loss to Canada, with a slight variation in that the team there had a sprinkling of overseas players.<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /><v:rect id=_x0000_s1026 style="MARGIN-TOP: 11.15pt; Z-INDEX: 1; LEFT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: -18pt; WIDTH: 522pt; POSITION: absolute; HEIGHT: 45pt; TEXT-ALIGN: left" stroked="f"></v:rect><SPAN style="Z-INDEX: 1; LEFT: 0pt; POSITION: absolute"><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparen
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