GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — Though it will offer little or no comfort for those who had high expectations of them, Jamaica’s Under-20 footballers had a mountainous challenge to do well in the CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers even before a ball was kicked.

When the young Reggae Boyz’s preparation and development programme were compared to that of their Group A opponents in hosts Guatemala and Honduras, the odds were stacked firmly against the Jamaicans to deliver another World Cup qualification for their country.

The basis of Jamaica’s preparation was a three-week training camp in Brazil, which involved six matches against local club opponents and mostly at their age-group level, and their Brazil coach Walter Gama, conceded that “it was not enough”.

In those games, the Boyz suffered four losses, while they had one draw and a win.

Before departing Jamaica for South America early last month, the team, under Jamaican coach Anthony Edwards, played five practice matches with mixed results against Premier League outfits Boys’ Town, Arnett Gardens, Tivoli Gardens, Waterhouse and Duhaney Park.

Though those games would have helped, they were clearly insufficient in providing the team with high-quality opposition ahead of a high-stakes international tournament.

Unlike the successful Under-17s, who had the benefit of a six-week camp in Brazil and four quick international warm-up matches against the USA (twice), Costa Rica and Haiti before the qualifying tournament in Montego Bay, the Under-20s had no first-class international match exposure.

The Hondurans, who formalised Jamaica’s elimination from the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship here by beating them 2-1 on Thursday, had a total of six high-quality pre-tournament matches, inclusive of five internationals.

They played strong Mexico and Costa Rica twice, hosted Trinidad and Tobago and engaged Mexican Premier Division team, Toluca FC.

Hosts Guatemala, did not have international practice matches, but played 13 matches againt local opponents, including a game against their senior team.

Though Guatemala are not considered a comparatively strong side, being together for two unbroken months preparing for the tournament and their home advantage status, have given them a fillip.

Coupled with bad football by their opponents and the support from approximately 5,000 cheering fans, the home side conjured up a 2-0 victory over Jamaica in the opening match of the group.

Both countries, already qualified for the quarter-finals, were due to meet last night in Central American derby to decide group winners, which will ultimately determine who they play in corresponding Group B. Qualifiers from that group, the USA and Panama, were also scheduled for a showdown at the Mateo Flores National Stadium last night.

Both Honduras and Guatemala have full professional players in their outfits. All of Honduras’ 20 players, for instance, are attached to professional clubs — both inside and outside the country. With the exception of four players, all the other Guatemalans are being nurtured in professional environments at home and abroad.

Contrastingly, 18 of Jamaica’s 20 players here are still associated with their school sides, while playing for club teams in Jamaica’s deficient ‘semi-professional’ Premier League. Some also play in amatuer parochial competitions around the island. It must be noted that many of these players would have had their last season playing in the Manning Cup and daCosta Cup schoolboy competitions last year.

Only Reno’s Craig Foster and Waterhouse’s Jason Watson, who are not attending school are solely playing for their clubs.

“I think that some of our players were playing their first international in this tournament and that shouldn’t be the case, especially when you are playing against professionals, while we are using a number of schoolboys,” lamented Howard McIntosh, chairman of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) Technical and Development Committee.

It was clear that Jamaica were at a disadvantage from the get-go, but that does not excuse some of the terrible football the team played, especially in the first match.

“At the same time some players were disppointing like those who play at the Premier League level and those who have played at the senior international level. Players like young Craig Foster and Allan Ottey disappointed, and also Marvin Morgan and Sergio Campbell,” McIntosh noted.

“We had great hopes for our youth programmes generally, obviously the Under-17s have qualified and we were hoping for similar achievement by the Under-20s… in terms of the preparedness of the team, what we found is that most of the people that we have to play against in CONCACAF, our level of preparedness was way below theirs,” he added.

The team’s lack of international match practice showed up in the team’s overall play, and realistically it would require lots of luck, a miracle even if, they were to be successful in the tournament.

“There is no substitute for match experience across all teams; I think we saw it clearly with the Under-17s because after they did their programme in Brazil and came back, they were able to have four games… in this case, we just came straight to Guatemala without the benefit of international practice games,” McIntosh said after the team’s decisive game on Thursday night.

Meanwhile, in the Central American zone qualification competition for the CONCACAF finals, Honduras were imperious in brushing aside El Salvador, 4-0, and Belize, 3-0, while Guatemala gained automatic qualification to the ongoing tournament as hosts.

Jamaica, in their Caribbean qualifiers, defeated Grenada 6-1, hosts Guyana 2-0 and US Virgin Islands, a whopping 13-0.