Primary objective met, but still work to be done —
ST MARGARET’S, Trinidad & Tobago — Even though some goals were met in their estimation, Jamaica’s Under-17 Reggae Boyz have looked back at the Caribbean World Cup qualifying tournament held here with a measure of disappointment.
While the primary objective of securing a place to the CONCACAF Championship in Panama next year was made safe, head coach Andrew Edwards lamented the inconsistent delivery over the five games.
In their Group A matches, Jamaica opened with a 6-2 victory over Bermuda, drew 0-0 with eventual champions Haiti, then finished off with an exciting 3-2 triumph over hosts Trinidad and Tobago.
Jamaica, who came second in the group on seven points, the same as winners Haiti, then lost to Cuba 0-1 in their semi-final match. In their third-place play-off against Curacao on Sunday, the Young Boyz cruised to 3-0 scoreline.
Still, the technical, tactical delivery and individual contributions remain a source of bother for the coach.
“In terms of the performance, generally, I thought we have to be disappointed with our inconsistent play at both ends of the pitch as we didn’t take care of the football in crucial stages in games and we fell apart as we were not as good as we are capable of being.
“We would have to be disappointed with our play in critical moments in all the games. We were certainly disappointed in our defence record in terms of the number of clean sheets we kept and the number of goals we allowed,” Edwards expressed.
“Outside of the technical side, we need to improve in the management of the players as certainly we had players who were looking short on conditioning in the tournament itself, obviously there was room for physical improvement, because we lost some of that when we came here and we have to look at that,” he added.
Edwards, the technical head at Manchester High School, said also greater attention needed to have been paid to the attitude and body language of players, something which he vows his staff will keep a keener eye on for the future.
“We have to monitor the behaviour and attitude of players and how we keep them motivated and inspired, so those are some areas that coaching and the management staff have to improve on.
“But overall with the fundamental objective having been met, I am very satisfied and pleased that our dream is still alive and we now have the opportunity to fix all those things that we have identified,” Edwards told the Jamaica Observer.
He said qualifying for the CONCACAF stage may have dented the drive to actually come away as regional champions.
“I think that once that was achieved we may have lost our levels and in a discussion with the players a lot of them confessed to that and we have to definitely look at that going forward.
“As far as the secondary object goes, we wanted to win the championship, but we didn’t do that. Also, individual players came with high ambitions to cop individual trophies and we didn’t get any of those and that would have been disappointing from an individual standpoint and at a collective level, because that is good for confidence,” Edwards argued.
The coach joined members of the backroom staff in congratulating three players — defender Damani Osei and attackers Raewin Senior and Nickque Daley — in being selected to the CFU All-Star team.
“We are pleased that we got the three all-star selections as I thought that was on par with our expectations as I thought we would have been good enough for three to five, so that was quite good and congratulations are in order for all of those players and the team that assisted them in getting the recognition,” Edwards ended.