GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — It’s the general consensus that under-preparedness was the root cause for Jamaica’s poor showing at the ongoing CONCACAF Under-20 Championship in this Central American city.

That shortage of preparation, say top Jamaican football officials here, is entrenched in a chronic lack of board-based exposure, which includes engaging quality international opponents, plus performing in environments and conditions that are synonymous with tournament situations.

Not that they expected it, but a hurriedly patched-up three-week training stint in Brazil was insufficient to equip the team to face opposition that is far more cultivated in the realms of high-quality competitive football, it is argued.

“Without proper exposure, our players will make silly mistakes at crucial moments in a game and that’s not something you learn (to fix) overnight, that comes with exposure… being in the arena often, playing in the environment often, therefore when you face those similar situations your action and reaction based on experience allow for good decisions,” said Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) general secretary Horace Reid, reacting to the elimination of Jamaica from the World Cup qualifying tournament.

It’s widely agreed that the inexperience and the attending simple-mindedness of the team to deal with tough decisions at difficult times contributed in the main to the general poor performance of the team.

In a game which they were favoured to win, the exposure-starved junior Reggae Boyz collapsed miserably to hosts Guatemala in a shameful display that inevitably led to their 0-2 defeat in the first of two preliminary games. With their backs against the wall and the odds stacked against them, Jamaica were forced into a must-win situation with “a strong Honduras” team, and after a positive start with an early goal in the bag, they wilted and eventually lost the match 1-2.

“We were not able to afford the ideal preparation for this team, ideally what would have been good for them would be to have four or five international A games, separate from your training camp as we afforded the Under-17s when they came back from Brazil,” Reid outlined.

“They (Under-17s) were able to play games in an environment that would be similar to what they would face in the tournament, so by tournament time they would have been prepared,” added the JFF’s top administrator.

So critical was Jamaica’s disadvantage going into the tournament, there were a number of players who were playing their international matches in the Guatemala tournament.

“Tonight (Thursday), we had players who were playing their first and second international game and therefore that in and of itself would become very challenging at this level. What we are hoping for going foward is that we can get the funding support so that the vision in terms of how we want to prepare the teams can be implemented,” noted Reid, who has had success as a coach at the national level in his homeland.

Reid, who also serves as chairmain of CONCACAF’s Adminstration Committee, suggested that the team’s perfomance over the two games could be considered justifiable when juxtaposed with what went into into preparation.

“Based on reports from the first game, there were a lot of nerves and clearly when you have that many (negative) nerves, you know that comes from a lack of exposure,” he explained.

Though there was marked improvement in the Honduras match, still the challenge remained for the Jamaicans.

“In the second game, which I was privileged to see, I thought the team did fairly well in most departments, but again it was always going to be difficult as we were playing an Honduran team with fresh legs, and us having played a game 48 hours before, and facing a strong opponent like Honduras, the longer that game went, it would affect our concentration and decision making,” Reid asserted.

For the equalising goal, it was a display of that drop in concentration and inexperience by Richardo Israel that saw him foul up what would normally require the application of conventional football knowledge. With the ball on it’s way out for a goal kick, which called for the player to shield for a goal kic, instead he hesitated and ended giving up a corner that resulted in a goal.

Though they were plenty in the first game, a noteworthy cock-up was when captain Sergio Campbell inexplicably passed the ball to a Guatemalan player in a vulnerable area of his half, and the home team did take full advantage of the generous gesture.

The Brazilian father-and-son coaching team of Luciano and Walter Gama, who took charge of the team for the three-week stint in Brazil is at the helm here, and the younger of the two Luciano agrees that the team required significantly more preparation were they to have success in Guatemala.

“Yes, we made some mistakes as the boys were not given enough international exposure as they needed to play more games plus they needed to be tutored more in the game… we know from the start that the time was short and we needed more time with the players to build a team with the right exposure and experience going into a competition,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Head coach of the senior Reggae Boyz, Theodore Whitmore, reinforced the view of Reid and Gama, having seen the team play on Thursday night.

“I’m seeing the team for the first time and it’s clear that their preparation was insufficient. If you look at the Under-17s, after they returned from Brazil they had pretty decent international practice games and I don’t think the Under-20s were that fortunate,” said Whitmore, who said he was impressed in particular with defender Jason Watson of Waterhouse FC.