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High press for Reggae Boyz - Schäfer charts new playing style to realise World Cup ambition
Published: Wednesday | February 5, 2014
Schafer
Ryon Jones, Staff Reporter
For some time now, the Jamaican footballing public has been clamouring for the national football teams to develop a readily identifiable style of play.
If Reggae Boyz head coach, Winfried Schäfer, has his way, the national senior men's team will soon be playing 'pressing' football.
Pressing football is a tactic where the team without possession works assiduously to dispossess their opponents, with even their attackers applying pressure from deep within the opposition's half.
Some of the teams in world football that employ this strategy are last year's Champions League winners and German title holders Bayern Munich, Spanish cham-pions Barcelona and the Spanish national team which claimed the 2010 World Cup.
In order to successfully play the pressing game, the fitness level of the players is paramount, and this is one area in which Schäfer is keen to see local footballers improve.
"When you want to play pressing (football), you need players who can run 90 minutes for aggressive pressing," Schäfer shared with The Gleaner. "But first of all, you need fitness, discipline and courage. We have to play at a high level, and the high level is pressing. When you lose the ball, you have to fight for the ball."
FOUR-YEAR CONTRACT
In order to help Jamaica embark on this new style of play, the 64-year-old German, who was originally appointed for a four-month period, has subsequently agreed in principle to a new four-year contract with the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), which will see him working to guide the country to the 2018 World Cup.
The Reggae Boyz are for action next on June 8 against France, but Schäfer anticipates that the team will be engaged in another friendly prior to that game.
"We will play before maybe a friendly match against Ireland," Schäfer disclosed. "My goal is the World Cup. My goal is not that we win against France; that is not possible, but we can make a very good match and everybody will say Jamaica's football is coming back. We have a plan for four years, not one week."
Schäfer believes in order for Jamaica's World Cup dreams to be realised, the country will first have to scrutinise the nightmares of the past.
"Captain (Horace Burrell, JFF president) and I have to work very hard together. We have to change many things," Schäfer reasoned. "First, we have to analyse why Jamaica missed out on four World Cups (since 1998) and why Jamaica did not play at the last Gold Cup; and what was bad, we cancel, and what was good, we keep."
ryon.jones@gleanerjm.com
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