Not even an hour after the West Indies’ euphoric nail-biting escape to win their Test series against England, we were jolted back to earth with scores coming from the CONCACAF Under-20 final tournament in Trinidad and Tobago.

The Jamaican team had rallied like true warriors to put themselves into a position to advance to the FIFA World Championships in Egypt with a win against Honduras in their final game.

After losing 3-0 to the United States in their first game, the Young Boyz came from a goal down to beat El Salvador 2-1 with just nine players.

With such a courageous performance, achieved without two of the more experienced players who were disqualified after getting red cards in the previous game and despite the result against the Americans, it was not a stretch to expect a positive result.

What happened on Tuesday afternoon was like a sucker punch in the stomach. It knocked the winds out of our systems.

No way did we expect to be beaten 4-0, ending, once again, yet another dream of World Cup participation.

Hardly any expense was spared to help this team prepare for the tournament and practice matches were arranged against top teams both here and in the United States.

It could be argued that this team got more help than even the senior Reggae Boyz in their World Cup build-up, and someone must give a proper explanation to the nation and the sponsors as to the debacle in Trinidad.

Alarms were raised when the coaching staff was still looking for players two months before the tournament. as this spoke to the ad-hoc approach to the preparations.

The team had been in preparation for more than a year and if the coaching staff were still not satisfied with the talent available then, what were we to expect?

No fewer then seven new players were looked at less then two weeks before the first game and the question must be asked as to why so many were invited in the first place.

I had serious problems with the choice of Donovan Duckie -a man with a one-page resume – as the coach of this team.

Duckie coached St George’s United from the Portland League to the Premier League and was fired after the owners of the club felt he was not spending enough time with the club because of his duties with the national team. He was then hired by Premier league club Portmore United to oversee their entire football operation then quit months later to be closer to his child.

Nowhere in this do I see any reason why he should have been hired for this job but I am sure there are some who would like to tell me I should shut up because I don’t understand international football.