Another wake up call was bitterly delivered with a telling 2-0 defeat to our national team on Tuesday night in San Jose at the Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica, when the ‘Los Ticos’ tapped twice on the shoulders and heads of our Reggae Boyz. Flying from a stellar high-altitude performance in Mexico, we have stuttered on the Liguanea plain and now quickly slumped to the depths of defeat in the central American region, to be rooted at the bottom of the very competitive hexagonal on two points as Panama lead on five points. Only three out of the ten games played, with four out of the six teams to possibly qualify and some nine weeks time before our next two games against regional powerhouses Mexico and the United States of American at home at ‘The Office’ on June 4 and 7, respectively, we need now to get it right after our recent experiments with a newly-designed team, heavily dependent on the England-based Reggae Boyz. Save for the fresh-foot Mexican performance, that quick-fix, has not really worked. Is it all lost? Definitely not. iIs it now time to do a critical self-examination of our early experiences, results and methods? Absolutely yes.

THE GAME:

With just four minutes on the clock, Luton Shelton broke free on top of the penalty box before passing to Jermaine Beckford inside the area, but his simple slider, did not trouble the custodian, Keylor Navas. An unnecessary infringement in midfield by Rodolf Austin in the 22nd minute led to a freekick being floated high to the tall Alvaro Sobario, who evaded his marker Jermaine Taylor and passed across the box for central defender, Michael Umana to stroke past Ricketts from seven-yards for the first goal.

In response, Shelton then dismissed three defenders, but failed to chip it over the goalkeeper, to convert.

The second half, was more of the same with Los Ticos bossing the midfield, introducing substitute midfielder Diego Calvas, a 20-year-old, who skipped by a sliding tackle at the edge of the area by Taylor, then weaved by an onrushing Lloyd Doyley, who was easily side-stepped before curving the ball around Adrian Mariappa and a diving Donovan Ricketts inside the far post on minute 82.

It was another 20-year-old midfielder, however, who caught the eye and keep our vision fixed on him in Joel Campbell, who plays in Spain at Real Betis, as he created mayhem all night, finishing with six of the 12 shots on Ricketts’ goal a constant threat. His 77th minute dribble and cross should have resulted in the stretching Sabario scoring.

DIFFERENT APPROACH:

This time let us all take a broader collective approach to properly access our assests, weaknesses and the real opportunities to make the Jamaicans dream of a long overdue return to the FIFA World Cup in Brasil 2014.

Firstly, we have totally rejected the creative concept of midfield transition, born out the Brazilian mindset and mastered in Jamaica by our line of maestro’s climaxing in 1998, with Theodore ‘Tappa’ Whitmore, now the coach.

Now, we overlook our talent and moreso the local players, ironically so after having over the last three years built a team of local-based players who were further developed in Europe and North America to exhibit high quality glimpses in the 2011 Gold Cup and over achieved to defeat USA, not since 2002, to once again qualify for the ‘Hex’. We reward them by belatedly super-imposing a legion of English based professionals late in February 2013, not many of whom display extra-ordinary skill sets necessary to make a substantial positive impact on a continuous basis. In the short run, not worth the cost paid to dump all in concept, style and personnel we have invested in prior.

Have we forgotten ourselves?

Abandoning our short passing midfield possession in conjunction with designed flank overlapping runs at high pace for European styled long passes and direct one dimensional gambles has failed. Our opponents on the other hand have play a series of co-ordinated midfield short passes in all three games so far.

In Mexico, tactical teamwork, defensive discipline and professionalism assisted by Dr Fraser’s physical preparation programme got us a great result. In the second game, Panama dominated at will and when three midfield substitutions were deployed in the second half, without a valid response, it exaggerated the weakness almost to a point of surrender, but defensively good enough not to lose. Seemingly, not interested in that geographical area, we again vacated the transitional zone to allow Costa Rica total dominance and snatch a convincing 2-0 victory.

Our team’s lack of singular midfield leadership with below par performances from Austin in the defensive zone and Shelton in the creative areas, have been very disappointing so far. The new additions of Marvin Elliott, Jobi McAnuff and Garath McCleary have not delivered much. Defensively, as a pair, Elliott has not worked well in tandem with Austin as both plays are regularly beaten with the same ball. Elliott, in particular, lacks mobility and ball handling skills, hence the team is not confident to pass our way out of defence, but instead more inclined to launch speculative passes that are inaccurate.

The Reading United pair of McAnuff and McCleary defend well on the flanks only, but they disappear from the precious area inside the midfield, their very slow dribbling skills have not served them well in attack or counter-attack in this fast-paced region of world football. Once again the pairing of Shelton and Jermaine Beckford as attacking players — With the latter just recovering from injury and lacking in match fitness, confidence and finesse — reaps limited rewards. Still no goals from them.

The midfielders and attackers are not working as an effective unit of five or six players in co-ordination at the right moments in the prescribed places with three sub-grouping combinations not producing: defensively Elliott and Austin, possessively McAnuff and McCleary, in attack Shelton and Beckford.

Precision, the name of next games

Positively, the JFF has announced a prominent friendly international in May in The Bahamas against Tottenham Hotspurs and should seize the opportunity to get another game plus an extended camp as the English and local Premier Leagues players a chance to bond and gel.

This should allow the technical team to have a concentrated period of the majority of the squad, save for the Scandinavian and North American players, who are still in competition but could be available for games only.

Luck has smiled on us to host the Mexico game early on June 4 followed by USA on June 7 and then an immediate obligation away in Honduras, a massive triple treat that we must maximise to elevate our position into the top- places at the half-way mark.

Jermaine ‘Teddy’ Johnson, our brightest spark in attack, should be suspended from playing in the USA game as he accumulated two cautions in the last three games against Mexico and Costa Rica.

Last but not least, the player selection process has to be spot on. We would hope to see roles for Jermaine Hue and Dane Richards, Darren Mattocks, Jermaine ‘Tuffy’ Anderson, and if fit, Tremaine Stewart.

Editor’s note: Clyde Jureidini is general manager of Harbour View FC and company secretary of the Premier League Clubs Association.