Since no one wants to say it let me do

[Jawge]

so: The quality of football that I saw from the clippings in Dcup and Manning cup was poor. (save for that shot by the georges player outside the box) Poor defensive plays, poor goalkeeping, poor all round. Small wonder our forwards can't score on quality opponents because they play against poor defenders. No wonder we did not qualify.

I can tell you this the USA U17 (which I don't even rate) would beat any of these schoolboy champs. I wouldn't put Brasil in the equation as the local expertise would say "oh that's Brasil, they are born to play that way". I would urge the JFF to bring the U17 to Ja to send the point home that Ja needs an academy set up for football and not embeded in high schools. I suggest they bring portugal or any of those youth teams that particiapted in the nike tour (Ja could not enter as Ja is not sponsered by nike, I guess) to play the school champs in JA.

[Sickko]

I am sure you were much better when you were in high school but alas your quest for higher learning deprived the world of your silky Brazilian like skills..

[Gamma]

in large measure he's right though. we are short on displaying skill on the field and during the game. maybe it is a combination of the poor fields and inconsistent coaching.

we see skilful players not using their skill to make a difference during the games.

btw, who knows what would have happened if he had not decided to focus on his academics! tappa? who dat?!! a the once noble chiron fomerly sagest of all centaurs!

[Sickko]

Not sure I agree and any one who will watch glimpses of a few games and makes a wholesale judgment is an idiot, especially a final where it is understood we most likely will not see the best game due to the tension.

[OJ]

sickko makes a good point.. Having not seeing the games but only highligts I cant speak of the quality but I will say the speed of play is slow and will affect us as we moved on.

[Me]

They highlights accurately reflect the state of the High school game. It is of a low standard.

[Sickko]

Some people will go to any absurd length to try and make a point, how can you compare Jamaica with 2.8million peopl to the United Stes with a pool of how many hundred millions but then again some roast breadfruits here think anything from America is superior.

While there were many poor teams due to many factors, there are some very good players in the schoolboys football competitions and I am sure the trip to the US will show this up.

ONCE AGAIN, the Manning and daCosta cup cannot be seen as the savior to our problems at the national senior level or even the Under 20 or Olympic levels where we go up against professionals but we must see the schoolboys football for what it is- a development league in a poor Third World country and if I may say so, it has served us very well these past how many decades.

[Mosiah]

i agree with jawge on this, and i have seen several matches. there are good individuals all over the place but the coaching is suspect and too often, good players have to be teaming up with ordinary players. and any player, and any team would look bad on many of these fields, even some of the fields we think are good!

schoolboy football should not be the be all and end all. unitl the clubs and sponsors get it right, let's not kill one part of the puzzle.

[Zeppo]

I can tell you this the USA U17 (which I don't even rate) would beat any of these schoolboy champs.

Gulf in talent.

[Mosiah]

Gulf?!?! Then how come we beat the USA U-17 in quaifiers the other day?!?

[Farmah]

Nope Zep! I disagree on the "gulf in talent" bit, inspite of the vast disparity of Jamaica's ~2.8M compared the USA's population of ~300M.

Jawge is on song when he pointed out how poorly our games looked. Two of my brothers (STGC very old boys) actually flew down to catch the first game and are still in Jamaica to see the return. They also were not impressed with what they saw, and thought both teams lacked shape discipline.

But back to your point Zeppo, I don't think it's a gulf in talent. There are loads of very talented young soccer players in Jamaica. However, the development structure (academies, coaching, youth camps, funding) does not match up to that of the USA. In that regard, the USA (like other big countries with deep pockets) will find that their youngsters (on a larger scale) will develop better and quicker that players in small 3rd world countries like Jamaica.

Until the JFF finds a way to deepen their coffers by amassing the inflow from corporations inside and outside Jamaica, we will constantly lag behind in terms of development. We need better teachers of the game, period!

But as Shatta once opined: "25 Adus are all over Jamaica!" And with that I agree. Zep If you had a couple weeks or a month to drive through Jamaica and watch the youngsters playing soccer then you would understand. Clearly the talent is there; what is lacking, is the funding for proper development!

[Jawge]

Thanks, Mo ,gamma, Me et al: this is a step in the right direction. We can all see that something is wrong. Now the question is how to fix it.

If academy; will all the clubs across the island make a contribution to run the academy? How will it be funded? We then move on to ask specifics of the academy: Most u17s should taught the techniques and importance of passing, good first touch again good first touch,heading, importance of exploiting space, movement without the ball, last but not least dribbling with an intent. Oh, Goal keeping very important: use of the goal area and techniques of mastering the angles around the goal et al. Also the science of the game and ball. Hey also tactics in terms of being organized defensively.

These select students will then only do nights classes in association with a high scholl in Ja to certify that they completed high school. Summer breaks they should be on tour with other academies in Europe and S.America. Tappa should not have a problem then.

[Mosiah]

Zep If you had a couple weeks or a month to drive through Jamaica and watch the youngsters playing soccer then you would understand. Clearly the talent is there; what is lacking, is the funding for proper development!

Are you inviting Zeppo to Jamaica?

Oh, for a moment I thought you did! I even thought you said "month"!

[Jawge]

Yuh really have the time. As you said it's development and teachers Ja need. Ja will improve vastly when the youth are taught the diffrence between technique and skill. i.e. heading is a technique going up in a set play and heading the ball in goal (among defenders) is a skill. The same can be said of a defender with ball on set plays.

[Sickko]

but we are agreeing too Mosiah, you just repeated what I said...half man-half a55 was just going off what Simoes said when he was here but Simoes' premises was way off course... in any given season you will have 150 schools playing football, it is unrealistic to think that in the first round we are going to see outstanding football and while I cant speak for the Manning Cup, i think we see a pretty decent level in the DCup once it gets to the top eight.

I think we (Gamma and Tilla included) are wrong when we try to compare the years gone by when we had less than 50 schools taking part in football when the concentration of good players in any one school was much higher and thus we had far more outstanding players in any one team like the Vere and Clarendon College teams