SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — Jamaica’s Under-17s will be hunting their first points of the CONCACAF Under-17 Championship when they tackle Guatemala in the Estadio Francisco Morazan at 3:30 pm Jamaica time.

In the other Group A encounters, the United States of America (USA) play Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) at 5:00 pm before host Honduras take on Cuba at 8:30 pm to complete the triple header.

The USA, Honduras and Guatemala are all on three points, but the Americans are on top with a better goal difference. Caribbean teams Jamaica, T&T and Cuba are all pointless.

Jamaica, who lost 0-2 to Honduras in their opening game on Friday, need a positive result against Guatemala to rekindle their campaign and head coach Andrew Edwards is confident his charges can deliver.

“We have been studying the Guatemalan team from the first game. I did some scouting of them in November and I believe that what I have seen, we are a better team,” Edwards told the Jamaica Observer.

“But obviously we have to go out there and put the performance to match that belief. But they showed some signs of weakness against Trinidad on Friday and we are looking forward to the opportunity to exploit those weaknesses and get our first three points in the win column,” Edwards added.

The young Reggae Boyz had their final training session yesterday morning at the Complejo Deportivo Muebles Herrera facility and a few players sat out training nursing minor injuries. Centre halves, Ajeanie Talbott and Jahwahni Hammond picked up knocks in the first game, while midfielder Deshane Beckford picked up his in a freak accident in the hotel’s elevator.

“We have a few concerns with Hinds, Beckford and Talbott, but I don’t think any of those will be out of the game tomorrow (today) based on the doctor’s report. We took them out of the session for precautionary reasons,” Edwards explained.  

“It was a very good session, I thought. We were focusing on our pressure game and our activity in front of the goal. I thought both of those areas of the park we did quite well and they really understand what we want them to do in terms of defensive shape,” he added.

“We trained at 10 o’clock, very deliberate, because we wanted to give ourselves an extended time for recovery and training at that time we would escape the sun at its peak and rehydrate ourselves in the recovery process,” Edwards noted.

— Howard Walker