Three lessons from the Gritty team for Jamaican ball.

[Stonigut]

1. Defense first, attack second, Gritty shows that championships and contention for championships must be won via a lockdown defense, first and foremost. A great defense creates ample opportunities on attack, even if it means conceding 75% possession to your opponent. Most importantly look at number of shots on target by the opponent, yesterday Swansea had one shot on goal and dominated with regatd to vall possession, now that is real D.

2. You cannot take advantage of opportunities to attack on the counter, if you slowly move the ball up the field, breakdown in an opponent attack means he has stretched out his lines of defense and only one thing can take advantage of a stretched defense or formation, speed on the counter, call it long ball if you want, but targeted selection of your attackers with speed in a broken formation is a fantastic advantage, why not maximize the opportunity.

3. And most important is back to number 1, defence makes the best offense.

[Gamma]

Difference is they have finishers and we lack finishers

[Stonigut]

Maybe, but don't forget the first duty in ball is to make sure you don't let the other team score, to me the expected outcome should always be at least a draw. Jamaica pick up too much tack trying to play open ball, picking up 3 from CR in qualifying is unacceptable, picking up 2 from pan at home, yes unacceptable, 3-1 from mex in gold cup final same thing, 8-0 from France in a friendly, really unacceptable.

On the striker thing we have the players we just need to develop and groom the talent, I think a kid like Michael Kerr has significant potential that others just totally miss, he is strong, he is pretty fast, he runs well into space, he clearly outthinks his opposition and he shows the ability to score goals in different ways and most importantly he seems to have good tight control, nothing fancy like everybody goes crazy about and notices but what's necessary to take advantage and score.

The strikers are out there, we just have not figured how to identify and harness that talent.