SAO PAULO, Brazil — Jamaica’s Under-17 footballers lost 4-0 to a good Uniao Sao Joao Araras Under-18 aggregation in their second practice match of their training stint here yesterday.

Uniao Sao Joao’s technical director Jose Carlos Grandini later compared the Jamaicans to that of a typical European-styled team with emphasis on long balls.

“Jamaica is a very strong physical team. The team is concerned about attack with a lot of European personality in coming to attack from back quick,” Grandini stuttered.

Jamaica’s head coach Wendell Downswell responded, saying his team was thrown off by the early goals and the humid conditions.

“We didn’t play our normal passing game like in the first game… moving the ball from side to side. But because we conceded two early goals we didn’t get to play with our normal rhythm,” he explained.

“The heat was terrible… we had to take two water breaks, but overall these are the kind of exercise we have to go through and come to grips with,” he noted.

Playing in hot and humid conditions in which two water breaks were ordered by the referee, Jamaica had no answer for their more accomplished Brazilians.

Uniao opened the scoring courtesy of poor goalkeeping from Nico Campbell in the ninth minute as Agenor attempted cross from the right side was somehow swatted into his own net.

Leanardo grabbed the second goal quickly after in the 15th, another ‘soft’ goal and it was 3-0 before half-time as Daniel headed home from a corner kick in the 37th, courtesy of poor marking and indecisive goalkeeping.

With first-choice goalkeeper Odean Clarke nursing a minor groin injury, Campbell was having a nightmare of a game.

But under constant urging and encouragement from goalkeeping coach Clive Wedderburn, the towering St George’s keeper grew in confidence and performed creditably.

At age 16 and standing at 6ft 4 inches, Campbell pulled off a good save from a penalty kick in the 75th, but five minutes later, he was again beaten — this time through no fault of his, as his defenders were nowhere around.

Willian latched onto a defence-splitting pass, rounded the onrushing Campbell and slotted home in the 80th for 4-0.

In his effort to save on the line, Jamaica’s defender Oshane Jenkins crashed into the post and received laceration to his chin and had to be substituted immediately.

At first, it seemed much worse as his teammates frantically waived for the medical staff as he laid motionless.

Results are not immediately important to Downswell at this time as preparations are geared towards the CONCACAF World Cup Qualification in February.

But he acknowledged that his team came upon a very good team in their learning process.