WASHINGTON, DC, USA — Despite crashing out of the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup Tournament following a 0-2 defeat to the United States in their quarter-final match-up at the RFK Stadium on Sunday afternoon, the consensus coming out of the Reggae Boyz squad is that the future is bright.

“I’m disappointed, but I still have to give credit to the players because they went out there and they performed,” declared head coach Theodore Whitmore.

The disappointment was not just for the end result of failing to beat the US for the first time in 20 meetings, or for failing to advance to the semi-finals of the regional tournament for the third time, but moreso because the Reggae Boyz, who had lit up North America with entertaining football, failed to raise their level of play to the required standard on the day.

During the group phase the Boyz rattled four goals past Grenada, two against Guatemala and one against Honduras to end the preliminary stage as just one of three unbeaten teams; just one of two teams with maximum nine points, and the only team yet to concede an goal.

The head coach believed that the Boyz failed to exhibit their new-found fluid, entertaining brand of football on the day due to some of the senior players underperforming, but he didn’t exclude the magnitude of the occasion, the opposition or even the history of the two teams, as possible reasons for the largely one-sided contest.

“Sometimes it can be nerves, sometimes it can be the opposition. I think some of our better players never played today (Sunday), but I think overall it was a good performance from the national team and with the players that we had in this tournament the future looks bright and I must congratulate the players again for the hard work throughout this tournament,” he added.

The high-riding Reggae Boyz matched their North American rivals head-to-head for the first half hour and should have scored from as early as the fourth minute when Ryan Johnson and Luton Shelton failed to score from close range after Dane Richards and Rodolph Austin had combined to create the best opportunity of the half.

Another opportunity went abegging on the half-hour mark when Johnson, after being played behind the US defence by Austin, teed up Shelton at the top of the penalty box, but the forward tried to be tricky instead of shooting at goal.

Whitmore thought that had the Boyz taken any of those chances, particularly the first, the result might have been different.

“That (missed chance) was very crucial and I think that would have changed the complexion of the game. We can’t keep getting chances, especially in these types of games, and giving them up. Look at the first goal that the US scored, so I think it would have made a lot of difference to the game,” he said.

Assistant coach Alfredo Montesso also bemoaned the missed opportunity.

“I’m disappointed especially with the result because the first 25, 30 minutes we were in shape, organised on the field and we had the two best chances in the game, but in this case when you play away, as we played today (Sunday), and you had a chance like that, you must capitalise on it.

“And then the team would get more confident, play ball possession as they played before and they would not give space to the other team,” he said.

For Ryan Johnson, the man who missed the chance, it was great goalkeeping by Tim Howard of Everton FC in the English Premier League.

“The keeper made a good foot save, that’s all,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He acknowledged that it could have changed the result of the game, but he couldn’t be certain.

From the half-hour mark, the Americans assumed total control and never let up. In fact, had it not been for outstanding work by goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts, the margin of victory could have been wider.

“We didn’t play our ball possession game today (Sunday), we didn’t show up for that, we must understand that every game we play ball possession we control the game. We move the ball one side to another, we get more organised on the field and we get less pressure than what we got today (Sunday),” said Montesso.

He posited that the Boyz didn’t play well because of the lost chance early on, which inspired the hosts, who gained belief and started moving and organising plays in the midfield, which “confused our marking inside”.

“In the second half we tried to step somebody inside the midfield to try to tie them down, don’t allow them to move too much. Both Bradley (Michael) and Jones (Jermaine), they had so much space to work and build the game from behind, so this is what caused our loss,” he offered.

The Americans got on the scorecard when Jones rifled a shot from outside the box which took a wicked deflection off the right boot of Jermaine Taylor and wrong-footed Ricketts, who appeared well set to make the save.

Then Taylor was criminally sent off for a non-existent foul on Jones, who had broken free towards goal. Television replays clearly suggested that Taylor did not make contact with the player, who tried his best to ‘draw’ contact and appeared to dive.

Being a man down and totally stretch as they went in search of an equaliser, the US made the game safe when Clint Dempsey evaded Ricketts before slotting home.

Team captain Shave Thomas, while disappointed with the loss, also thought it was a good performance overall, and something to be proud about. He vowed to get back at the US.

“A target was set and we never got to it, we fell one game short, but if you look back at our overall performance in the tournament it is something we can look at and be happy about and build on because we came here and we played some good football and it is just sad that we fell short of our goal,” he noted.

Having seen the team improve throughout the tournament, and even during a training camp in Brazil, Whitmore now plans to set a programme leading into the 2014 World Cup Qualifying campaign.

“When we return home we will sit and discus where we go from here because for now we just have to concentrate on some practice games and focus on the 2014 campaign. We have some areas in the team that we need to start looking at to get it more competitive, so we have a lot of work to do,” he said.