The Jamaica Under-20 team is set to depart the island in two groups today for the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Under-20 qualifiers in Dominican Republic.

One part of the Jamaican delegation is scheduled to travel from Kingston to Santo Domingo via Miami this morning. The second group is to leave this afternoon, taking a route through Panama City before landing in Santo Domingo.

The squad of 20 footballers has a majority of players who were part of a previous batch of the national Under-17 set-up.

Head Coach Ricardo Gardner, his assistant Altimont Butler, and the rest of the coaching staff had training sessions with the team right up to the eve of their departure yesterday.

“For what it’s worth, things went well,” Butler told the Jamaica Observer after Friday’s practice at the Jamaica Football Federation Technical Centre in Mona.

“When we started, we only had them twice a month, so we have them like six days in a month. Over six months that’s like 18 days, but recently we had them for an entire week, and the training went well, with the response from the players. There were others factors such as [lack of] international games, high quality games…those are the struggles,” the former Jamaica senior player said.

Butler said he is pleased with the composition of the squad after a relatively extensive recruitment process.

“We looked at over 100 players and it came down to the final 20, though coming down to the end there were a couple of injuries [which ruled out players]. We have a balanced squad. We had to select players who we thought would fit well into the system we are trying to employ out there,” he said.

The CFU qualifying tournament is scheduled to run from June 15-19.

The young Reggae Boyz are drawn in Group Four alongside the host nation, Dominica, and St Kitts and Nevis.

Jamaica are to open their account versus Dominica on Wednesday, before meeting St Kitts and Nevis on Friday. They are set to close off against Dominican Republic on Sunday.

Only the top team from the group is assured of advancing to the CFU Championship.

— Sanjay Myers