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Time to blend
published: Wednesday | July 18, 2007
JAMAICA'S SENIOR men's football team of purely local squaddies recently returned from Asia and the Middle East where they played four matches.
They won one - 2-1 over Indonesia - and lost three, 3-0 to Vietnam, 2-0 to Malaysia and a most embarrassing 8-1 to Iran.
The games were designed to prepare the team ahead of the important World Cup qualifiers that will begin in the first quarter of next year.
Like other tours and tournaments in recent times, the competition against the non-traditional football nations was used to enhance the experience and exposure of the local-based players, who technical director Velibor 'Bora' Milutinovic is grooming for the World Cup campaign.
Milutinovic himself was not very familiar with the players as he really only started working here in November last year. In much of that time he has gone scouting at various matches in Jamaica and drawn upon a number of players who have featured in the matches since.
Such competition came in the form of an earlier tournament in Asia, Hong Kong to be exact, where a largely Under-23 squad was utilised as well as practice matches against Peru, watched by Bora while here for initial discussions leading up to his contract, then Chile.
Grooming process
The grooming process, though, actually started long before Milutinovic got here and squads chosen and handled by top local coaches Wendell Downswell and Carl Brown during their tenures have contained a large number of local-based players, even for tournaments such as the Digicel Caribbean Cup.
They have not done well, generally, in internationals both at home and abroad and over the past year, besides the just-concluded Asian tour, against youthful line-ups they lost 1-0 to Chile and drew 1-1 with Peru and Panama at the National Stadium, where last year they were eliminated from the Digicel Cup group play-offs after beating St. Lucia 4-0, Haiti 2-0 and losing 2-1 against St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They also lost 2-0 to Switzerland in Fort Lauderdale.
In the midst of this, there is a set of national football representatives who have been largely left out of thepicture - the ones based in Europe.
This continues to happen, even when prime opportunities present themselves for blending the talent being unearthed and fashioned to complement the overseas-based grouping that is expected to form the core of the World Cup qualifying challenge.
Spurned chances include the Chile match at the National Stadium on June 5, as well as the four matches in Asia and the Middle East this and last month. In that period, the European-based players were out of season and many were home in Jamaica.
Equally mixed group
If there is any plan to make these players the backbone of the team to contest qualification for South Africa 2010, then an equally mixed group containing local and foreign-based players should have been playing together, not like the recent occasions when only Ricardo Gardner, Luton Shelton and U.S./Brazil-based Sean Fraser generally have been invited.
When there's more quality in a team, there's often more maturity and better performances. Additionally, the support levels would be greater for the local-based players as the more experienced group would comple-ment the inexperienced and that could ensure a smoother transition process and better results, as well as understanding among the players, which is so necessary.
There are other factors than pedigree that relate to personality and team tactics, which especially in the latter case, could be sort out in a shorter time frame.
As things stand now, the European-based players are back with their clubs and Jamaica will only get one-off opportunities for blending on FIFA-allotted friendly international days.
Given those sparse opportunities until qualification starts and the poor results garnered by the local-based Reggae Boyz overseas and at home, one gets the distinct impression that Bora will have to work double overtime with the local-based contingent to significantly improve their levels and hope that everything works perfectly with the overseas-based lot in terms of fitness and form or else Jamaica will be short on preparation for the qualifiers.
And there are other dangerous facets to this new trend of omitting the foreign-based players from tournaments.
Failure to advance
One is failure to advance past the Digicel Cup group stage last year because the country is not represented by its best players; and two, the British-based players could run into contract difficulties because they are not making the 75 per cent requirement of playing for their countries.
Claude Davis, who is moving from just-demoted Premiership outfit Sheffield United to Derby County, a Premier League team, encountered such problems and his application for a work permit will be dealt with by an appeals committee tomorrow.
published: Wednesday | July 18, 2007
JAMAICA'S SENIOR men's football team of purely local squaddies recently returned from Asia and the Middle East where they played four matches.
They won one - 2-1 over Indonesia - and lost three, 3-0 to Vietnam, 2-0 to Malaysia and a most embarrassing 8-1 to Iran.
The games were designed to prepare the team ahead of the important World Cup qualifiers that will begin in the first quarter of next year.
Like other tours and tournaments in recent times, the competition against the non-traditional football nations was used to enhance the experience and exposure of the local-based players, who technical director Velibor 'Bora' Milutinovic is grooming for the World Cup campaign.
Milutinovic himself was not very familiar with the players as he really only started working here in November last year. In much of that time he has gone scouting at various matches in Jamaica and drawn upon a number of players who have featured in the matches since.
Such competition came in the form of an earlier tournament in Asia, Hong Kong to be exact, where a largely Under-23 squad was utilised as well as practice matches against Peru, watched by Bora while here for initial discussions leading up to his contract, then Chile.
Grooming process
The grooming process, though, actually started long before Milutinovic got here and squads chosen and handled by top local coaches Wendell Downswell and Carl Brown during their tenures have contained a large number of local-based players, even for tournaments such as the Digicel Caribbean Cup.
They have not done well, generally, in internationals both at home and abroad and over the past year, besides the just-concluded Asian tour, against youthful line-ups they lost 1-0 to Chile and drew 1-1 with Peru and Panama at the National Stadium, where last year they were eliminated from the Digicel Cup group play-offs after beating St. Lucia 4-0, Haiti 2-0 and losing 2-1 against St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They also lost 2-0 to Switzerland in Fort Lauderdale.
In the midst of this, there is a set of national football representatives who have been largely left out of thepicture - the ones based in Europe.
This continues to happen, even when prime opportunities present themselves for blending the talent being unearthed and fashioned to complement the overseas-based grouping that is expected to form the core of the World Cup qualifying challenge.
Spurned chances include the Chile match at the National Stadium on June 5, as well as the four matches in Asia and the Middle East this and last month. In that period, the European-based players were out of season and many were home in Jamaica.
Equally mixed group
If there is any plan to make these players the backbone of the team to contest qualification for South Africa 2010, then an equally mixed group containing local and foreign-based players should have been playing together, not like the recent occasions when only Ricardo Gardner, Luton Shelton and U.S./Brazil-based Sean Fraser generally have been invited.
When there's more quality in a team, there's often more maturity and better performances. Additionally, the support levels would be greater for the local-based players as the more experienced group would comple-ment the inexperienced and that could ensure a smoother transition process and better results, as well as understanding among the players, which is so necessary.
There are other factors than pedigree that relate to personality and team tactics, which especially in the latter case, could be sort out in a shorter time frame.
As things stand now, the European-based players are back with their clubs and Jamaica will only get one-off opportunities for blending on FIFA-allotted friendly international days.
Given those sparse opportunities until qualification starts and the poor results garnered by the local-based Reggae Boyz overseas and at home, one gets the distinct impression that Bora will have to work double overtime with the local-based contingent to significantly improve their levels and hope that everything works perfectly with the overseas-based lot in terms of fitness and form or else Jamaica will be short on preparation for the qualifiers.
And there are other dangerous facets to this new trend of omitting the foreign-based players from tournaments.
Failure to advance
One is failure to advance past the Digicel Cup group stage last year because the country is not represented by its best players; and two, the British-based players could run into contract difficulties because they are not making the 75 per cent requirement of playing for their countries.
Claude Davis, who is moving from just-demoted Premiership outfit Sheffield United to Derby County, a Premier League team, encountered such problems and his application for a work permit will be dealt with by an appeals committee tomorrow.
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