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published: Saturday | September 13, 2008
Tym Glaser
RENÉ SIMOES' second stint at the helm of the good ship Reggae Boyz ended ignominiously early Thurs-day morning when Captain Horace Burrell made him walk the plank.
In what must have been an incredibly tough decision, Burrell put performance before friendship and dumped the Brazilian coach/technical director after three lacklustre games in World Cup qualifying in Canada, Mexico and Honduras.
The team emerged with a solitary point from those away encounters and is now all but mathematically eliminated from recapturing the magic of 11 years ago and qualifying for football's greatest event - the World Cup.
How things have unfolded for Jamaica is sad and disappointing but by no means unexpected.
Apart from Burrell, Simoes and some other JFF insiders, did anyone truly believe the little Brazilian could capture lightning in a bottle again and pull off another Cup miracle in such a short time frame?
After Burrell's abrupt firing of previous technical director 'Bora' Milutinovic, Simoes had a grand total of about eight months to whip the national team into some sort of shape before the 'big games' started.
Reality set in
Optimism ran high until reality set in and the Boyz drew 1-1 in Toronto, lost 3-0 in Mexico City and then fell 2-0 in San Pedro Sula on Wednesday night.
Simoes said mea culpa after the team's thumping in Mexico and handled his sacking with dignity by admitting he didn't get the results required.
However, all the blame cannot fall on one scapegoat. Burrell must be held equally, or even more, responsible for the horrid state the Reggae Boyz find themselves in with three home games to go.
Tough decisions had to be made when the 'Captain' took back the presidency of the JFF from Crenston Boxhill late last year, but sacking Bora did not have to be one of them.
Bora's results with a predominantly Jamaica-based contingent were, on the whole, dreadful but he was trying to identify young, fresh legs before introducing the seasoned overseas campaigners for the long march to South Africa 2010.
He was never given a chance to implement that phase of the plan, so we will never know how it would have panned out, but could it possibly have been worse?
Why did Burrell get rid of Bora so quickly to set René such a massive, well nigh impossible, task?
Miracle
Was it because he truly believed the man with the 'Jesus Saves' shirt could pull off miracle No. 2 or was it to remove another trace of the Boxhill regime from the JFF set-up?
Moving on to sacking No. 2, how does Simoes' firing help the team now with three home games to go and still an outside shot at moving on if it can secure at least seven points at 'the Office' (and hope that Honduras stumble)?
Would it not have been better to let the professor play out the string and then start putting together the pieces for World Cup 2014?
Now, the next coach has a whopping month to get the Boyz back on track. Good luck, guy.
Simoes said he will not claim the money he is contractually obligated to through to 2010, so maybe there was an element of financial prudence in the sacking as well. Who knows?
If Jamaica do not qualify for SA 2010, Burrell will no doubt blame it all on the state in which he found the JFF and the national programme when he took over from Boxhill.
However, that's a tired argument now and there's plenty of blame to go around, plenty, Captain.
Tym Glaser
RENÉ SIMOES' second stint at the helm of the good ship Reggae Boyz ended ignominiously early Thurs-day morning when Captain Horace Burrell made him walk the plank.
In what must have been an incredibly tough decision, Burrell put performance before friendship and dumped the Brazilian coach/technical director after three lacklustre games in World Cup qualifying in Canada, Mexico and Honduras.
The team emerged with a solitary point from those away encounters and is now all but mathematically eliminated from recapturing the magic of 11 years ago and qualifying for football's greatest event - the World Cup.
How things have unfolded for Jamaica is sad and disappointing but by no means unexpected.
Apart from Burrell, Simoes and some other JFF insiders, did anyone truly believe the little Brazilian could capture lightning in a bottle again and pull off another Cup miracle in such a short time frame?
After Burrell's abrupt firing of previous technical director 'Bora' Milutinovic, Simoes had a grand total of about eight months to whip the national team into some sort of shape before the 'big games' started.
Reality set in
Optimism ran high until reality set in and the Boyz drew 1-1 in Toronto, lost 3-0 in Mexico City and then fell 2-0 in San Pedro Sula on Wednesday night.
Simoes said mea culpa after the team's thumping in Mexico and handled his sacking with dignity by admitting he didn't get the results required.
However, all the blame cannot fall on one scapegoat. Burrell must be held equally, or even more, responsible for the horrid state the Reggae Boyz find themselves in with three home games to go.
Tough decisions had to be made when the 'Captain' took back the presidency of the JFF from Crenston Boxhill late last year, but sacking Bora did not have to be one of them.
Bora's results with a predominantly Jamaica-based contingent were, on the whole, dreadful but he was trying to identify young, fresh legs before introducing the seasoned overseas campaigners for the long march to South Africa 2010.
He was never given a chance to implement that phase of the plan, so we will never know how it would have panned out, but could it possibly have been worse?
Why did Burrell get rid of Bora so quickly to set René such a massive, well nigh impossible, task?
Miracle
Was it because he truly believed the man with the 'Jesus Saves' shirt could pull off miracle No. 2 or was it to remove another trace of the Boxhill regime from the JFF set-up?
Moving on to sacking No. 2, how does Simoes' firing help the team now with three home games to go and still an outside shot at moving on if it can secure at least seven points at 'the Office' (and hope that Honduras stumble)?
Would it not have been better to let the professor play out the string and then start putting together the pieces for World Cup 2014?
Now, the next coach has a whopping month to get the Boyz back on track. Good luck, guy.
Simoes said he will not claim the money he is contractually obligated to through to 2010, so maybe there was an element of financial prudence in the sacking as well. Who knows?
If Jamaica do not qualify for SA 2010, Burrell will no doubt blame it all on the state in which he found the JFF and the national programme when he took over from Boxhill.
However, that's a tired argument now and there's plenty of blame to go around, plenty, Captain.
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