BALTIMORE, Maryland — Defender Alvas Powell has walked out of the Jamaica national football team in the middle of the ongoing CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Team managers confirmed that the Portland Timber player left the team hotel in Toronto on Wednesday, and was said to have informed them that he was headed back to his club.

Powell, 20, was the only player missing from the 23-man squad that flew to Baltimore Wednesday evening.

The former Portmore United standout, who was a second-half substitute in Jamaica’s 1-0 win over El Salvador on Tuesday, was reported to have expressed dissatisfaction with his limited playing time.

His untimely departure comes at a time when the Reggae Boyz have advanced to the quarter-final stage of the Gold Cup, where they will meet Caribbean neighbours Haiti at the M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday.

Powell, long touted as a promising player for Jamaica, who came up the ranks and was given his first senior cap as a teenager, is not being viewed kindly by his teammates, who feel keenly disappointed by his decision.

Head coach Winfried Schaefer, who admits that he has offered counselling to the robust defensive-minded player, often assuring him that he was young and his time will come.

“I told him that his time is coming as we need all players… we need Michael Hector, we need you (Powell), Simon Dawkins and Ryan Thompson,” said the German, a picture of disappointment on Wednesday.

He said other senior professionals in the team have had to deal with being on the bench, but they hardly complained, instead they continued to work hard.

“Jermaine Taylor only played 20 minutes in the Copa America and he did complain and say this and that about the coach. Look at Demar Phillips in the Caribbean Cup, he played the first match and he go out for Kemar (Lawrence) and he was not happy, but he made very good training, and I said to him, ‘we need you’, and in the final he played very well and he made a penalty,” Schaefer told Jamaican reporters at the Renaissance Hotel here Wednesday evening.

“But these players are professionals,” he added.

Asked if he would accept Powell if he repented and came back, Schaefer was blunt: “No!”

The coach hinted that he was not going to allow a player who thinks only of himself to disrupt the unity in the team.

“It’s not about me, it’s about us… it’s about the team. All for one, one for all,” Schaefer stressed.

Powell’s agent Damani Ralph said he’s saddened by what has happened.

Ralph, a former Reggae Boy, told Jamaica Observer via telephone yesterday that he does not want the matter to blow up to a point that it impacts the title-chasing Boyz.

“I don’t really want to comment (much), except to say that I hope that the country can progress and continue to do well. I don’t want this (matter) to become a distraction, as there is no winner on both sides of this.

“It’s a sad time for the youngster and it’s a sad time for the national team right now, and I will address this at the end of the tournament,” Ralph said.

Powell has played some 14 times for Jamaica as a senior, and was first paraded on the senior team stage by Theodore Whitmore, who like Schaefer, had belief in the potential of the young player, who first came to national attention as a standout for Paul Bogle High School in the daCosta Cup competition.

With Powell gone and Taylor injured, plus one-match suspensions for Darren Mattocks and Je-Vaughn Watson, Schaefer may have a slight crisis on his hands for Saturday’s quarter-final game.

The JFF had launched an unsuccessful protest for the second yellow card for Mattocks in the game against El Salvador, and also the caution for Watson in the same contest.

He said he was trying to bring in German-based Daniel Gordon as a replacement, but he would not be available. But Schaefer has summoned the Under-23 pair of midfielder Omar Holness and defender Sean McFarlene to replenish his stock. .

— Sean Williams