Just a few weeks prior to the start of the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship, Jamaica’s head coach Theodore ‘Tappa’ Whitmore believes his players will have to step up the pace following their dismal showing at the Simon Bolivar Tournament in Venezuela.

Jamaica lost all three games — 1-3 to eventual champion Paraguay; 1-4 to Peru and 1-5 to Venezuela as they warmed up for the World Cup qualifiers they will host between January 9-24.

Because the team is not where he wants it to be, Whitmore has cancelled any perceived Christmas break, instead keeping the players in camp for extra work.

“When you talk about professional football you don’t talk about holidays, so there will be no Christmas and we will see the committed people,” said Whitmore.

“We have a couple players from overseas already in the squad and we have Michael Seaton now to join,” he added.

“We have a lot of work to do in a short space of time,” Whitmore told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday, sounding the battle trumpet.

At the recent championship, the former Reggae Boyz star underlined a combination of things that went wrong.

“The pace of the game is a bit different than ours and I think we didn’t adjust. We made a lot of defensive errors that caused the goals and at international level we can’t give up goals like these,” he noted.

With Jamaica set to open against Caribbean neighbours and arch rival Trinidad and Tobago at the National Stadium, Whitmore believes there are indeed some positives from the Simon Bolivar experience.

“There are a lot of positives because of the whole experience with the guys playing at a different level and I guess it would have sunk in now. The attitude, the mentality has to change to play at a faster pace,” said Whitmore.

“There is still a lot of work, not only at the national level, but at the local level because most of the times when the players come to the national team for a short period of time they have to make a transition, so there is a lot of positives that can be taken from it,” he added.

Jamaica are drawn in Group A alongside Trinidad & Tobago, Aruba, Panama, United States and Guatemala, while the Group B teams are Haiti, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Honduras and El Salvador.

The National Stadium in Kingston and the Montego Bay Sports Complex in St James will each play host to Group A matches.

The Montego Bay Sports Complex will hosts all the action in Group B and the final phase on January 24 when CONCACAF crowns a champion. The top team from each group after round-robin play advances to the World Cup.

The second and third place nations from each group will advance to the knockout phase where they will fight for the final two CONCACAF World Cup spots.