PANAMA CITY, Panama — Two coaches of Women’s football in Jamaica believe the female game continues to haemorrhage from a chronic lack of the basics.

Assistant coaches of the Women’s Under-17 and Under-20 teams, Xavier Gilbert and Merron Gordon, both agree that female football suffers from a combination of too few competitions, poor infrastructer, late exposure to the fundamentals of the game and a lack of will at various levels to drive the game.

Gordon, who is currently with the Under-20 Reggae Girlz in Panama for the CONCACAF World Cup qualifying finals, says a testament of the inadequate grassroots programme repeats itself when players come to the national set-up lacking the basic technical skills.

“I don’t think that a player called to the national set-up should come there and can’t pass or control the ball… when you come to the national level, I think it’s time for tactical and mental work, but when you get girls coming to the national system and you have to spend 90 per cent of your sessions teaching them to pass and control, then tactical work is going to be short,” said the coach of the successful schoolgirl team of Clarendon’s Lennon High School.

Failure, he posits, will be the inevitable outcome when a team’s shortcomings are compounded by tactical inadequacies. “When you go to international competitions and you have short tactical work, you are more likely to lose,” he said.

Gordon, who is doubling as equipment manager for the team here operating on a tight budget, said with a solid foundation from the grassroots up, national coaches would be in better positions to prepare teams for competitions in the face of all the difficulties that face the women’s version of the game in Jamaica.

“If we can prepare the girls with the basic things, then when they come to the national level it would be an easier job for the coaching staff and we would then be more likely to qualify for a major tournament, so the development part of the football is very important,” said the four-time ISSA schoolgirl all-island champion coach.

Gordon, who also coached Lennon’s daCosta Cup team to the final of the rural tournament back in 2010, said that exposure to proper coaching methods and practices for young male and female players should start prior to or at the primary school level as it’s common for players to get their first taste of organised football at the high school stage.

“I would like to take it a little further and say we need to go deeper than the high school and start to develop at the primary level,” he told the Sunday Observer from the team’s Continental Hotel and Casino base located in the heart of the Panama capital.

In support of his point, Gordon pointed out that the players of arguably the most gifted of Jamaican women’s teams had their baptism at the primary school level. “The best team that I believe that Jamaica had was the 2006 team and those girls were playing primary school football coming right up and that’s why we had that talented bunch, but since then the primary level football has been up and down, especially in the rural areas,” he said.

“It has been about two or three years now since we have not had a primary school competition for females… so if we start at the grassroots level up, then we will get there,” said Gordon.

He also supports the idea that the parish associations should become more involved in the women’s game as part of their overall programme as their input or the lack thereof could prove critical one way or another.

“If the parishes take the football more seriously at the grassroots level, then the schools will benefit, and if it doesn’t go in that direction, it will always be like this,” noted Gordon.

The Physical Education teacher at Lennon said while the high school competition is a source of motivation for the young players, the club league has not been able to inspire optimum performance.

“Unlike schoolgirl football when the girls are playing for scholarships and whatever, in the Sherwin Williams competition, I don’t think the girls are motivated because they are basically not playing for anything because we don’t have a senior team.

“We don’t have girls getting contracts to go abroad to play, so they just basically come and play for fun. If we can organise a senior women’s team, I think the local Premier League will get better,” said the coach of Los Perfectos’ women’s team, who in their 2010 debut season won three titles, including the Sherwin Williams Premier League.

Meanwhile, Gilbert’s call for more women’s competitions resonates with relevance as that’s the trend of countries within the CONCACAF region, where three of the world’s top teams are located in the number one-ranked USA, Mexico and Canada.

“There are certainly not enough competitions for the girls… apart from the schoolgirl and club competitions that last for a few months, there is no real structured competition for the girls to harness their talent and improve themselves outside of that,” said the coach of Excelsior High and Waterhouse FC women’s teams.

Gilbert, who won the premier schoolgirl competitions back-to-back in 2005, 2006 and 2007, noted that a lack of support — corporate and otherwise — has seen the discontinuation of leagues and the perishing of ideas aimed at improving the game.

“KSAFA tried with Under-17 and Under-20 Five-a-Side competitions, which I thought was a step in the right direction, but even that has faded away although we got some good participation and I think we need more competitions like these.

“Even though that was not a full 11-a-side competition, it could keep the girls active… we need more structured avenues for the girls as not many parents are going to allow their girl children to go out on the streets to play with the boys, while the boys will get away with that,” said Gilbert, who has a Women’s National Premier League title under his belt with Waterhouse in 2008.

Gilbert, who assists head coach Vin Blaine with the national women’s teams, noted that women’s football needs a big lift and said World Cup qualification success could be the ideal thing.

“People would say that Jamaicans are bandwagonists, but if we definitely go to the World Cup more people would definitely come on board as they would now believe, and at the end of the day sponsors would want to get their mileage and we understand that,” he ended.

The Under-20 Girlz were at press time last night getting ready to face destiny when they tackle Canada in a do-or-die CONCACAF World Cup qualifying match at the Romel Fernandez Stadium. The Jamaicans’ hopes of advancing to the semi-finals of the championship suffered a setback when they were defeated 3-1 by Mexico in their opening match on Thursday night.

Jamaica, which has successfully qualified men’s teams to all FIFA World Cup levels, is still to get a women’s team to the global stage.