ANTOFAGASTA, Chile — Having settled and seemingly recovered from their long travel to this northern rustic mining town, the Reggae Boyz are beginning to take shape as preparations intensified yesterday ahead of their Group B opener against defending champions Uruguay on Saturday.

The Boyz spent nearly two hours at the Parque Juan Lopez stadium, where they were taken through their warm-up and technical session by physical trainer Andre Waugh before Assistant Coach Miguel Coley led the tactical session. Head Coach Winfried Schaefer then managed a shooting drill to end the session as the three players who joined the camp yesterday morning, the Houston Dynamo pair of striker Giles Barnes and defender Jermaine Taylor, along with the New York Red Bulls defender Kemar Lawrence, had a light workout separate from the rest of the 15-man squad.

“We are looking at our system of play, how we are going to play, the roles and functions of the players, and I think they looked pretty comfortable with it,” explained Coley at the end of the session.

“A lot of them have been playing together for a period of time so they have that comfort level, and then the system is nothing new to them, so I liked how they looked today,” he added.

And the fact that all 23 players are yet to assemble (18 have now joined the squad), Coley doesn’t believe it hampers the planning of the technical staff.

“No, it does not, because we have the core group of players of the team here, which is important. And although every player is important, we have the core of the team. So we are working together to put things in place so that when the other players arrive everything can fit in.

“We are looking forward to the rest of the team being here, but for those here the energy level and camaraderie is very good, which is very important going into a tournament like this.”

Video Analyst Carlos Garcia had earlier presented his report on the Uruguayans at a team meeting, and a part of yesterday’s training session was targeted at upsetting the 15-time champions’ rhythm.

“The good thing is that we played against Venezuela, a similar type of team to Uruguay, but a team who play more football, especially in terms of build up, while Uruguay is more of a counter-attacking team. So we are looking to try to make less mistakes, especially in the middle third of the field and the players are comfortable with that,” explained Coley.

“The next thing we are going to look at is how we play, and we will analyse the game against Venezuela, when we did a lot of things well and had some mistakes where we opened up the field too much when we were defending. So we are looking to close that some more, but in terms of today’s session they responded well and they had questions to ask, and they were integral in terms of the planning and the system that we want to play.”

The young coach, who guided Jamaica College to a sweep of the local high school football titles last season, admitted that the technical staff would have liked to have all the players here, “but it is what it is, and those who are not here, they are texting those here and they are in tuned with the plan and what’s happening”.

In terms of match fitness, Coley said it is all about the mindset at this stage, and from what he is observing the players are positive. And with a practice game set for tomorrow against a local club side at the Boyz’s training base at the Parque Juan Lopez, they hope to get some much-needed match rhythm to help iron out whatever kinks might be in their armour.

Jamaica open against Uruguay at 2:00 pm (Jamaica time) on Saturday inside the Estadio Regional Calvo y Bascunan, then take on Paraguay three days later at the same venue at 4:00 pm (Jamaica time), then close out against the Lionel Messi-led Argentina at 4:30 pm inside the estadio Sausalito in Vina del Mar on Saturday, June 20.

The top two sides from each of the three groups advance to the knockout stage, along with the two best third-placed teams.

The 18 players currently here are goalkeepers Dwayne Miller and Ryan Thompson; defenders Wes Morgan, Adrian Mariappa, Hughan Gray, Michael Hector, Jermaine Taylor, Kemar Lawrence; midfielders Rodolph Austin, Joel McAnuff, Simon Dawkins, Garath McCleary, Romeo Parkes, Daniel Gordon; and forwards Giles Barnes, Dino Williams, Allan Ottey, Joel Grant.

Lance Laing, Deshorn Brown and Darren Mattocks are expected to join the group today, while Duwayne Kerr is expected in tomorrow morning, and Je-Vaughn Watson on June 14.

<