MONTEGO BAY, St James — If offered the full-time job of coaching the Reggae Boyz, Theodore Whitmore, who was named to his third stint at the helm to guide the team through their two games in Scotiabank Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Caribbean Championships third round, said he would gladly take it.

A day after Whitmore was named to coach the team along with Arnett Gardens’ coach Jerome Waite as his assistant, the former midfielder told the Jamaica Observer he thought he had a lot to offer the national football programme.

Ironically, Whitmore will replace German Winfried Schaefer, the man who was hired after his firing in 2013, and who presided over Jamaica’s disastrous FIFA World Cup campaign that ended with back-to-back losses to Panama and Haiti.

Asked whether he would want the job on a permanent basis, Whitmore, who was getting ready to guide his St James High team in an ISSA/FLOW daCosta Cup Zone A game at Jarrett Park yesterday, responded: “Why not?

“There is a lot that I can contribute and there is a lot I can offer to the national programme,” he added. Whitmore, who was relieved of his duties in his second stint in 2013 after three years, then said: “We have all made mistakes, we all have grown and seen where we can improve the game in Jamaica.”

During his previous stint, Whitmore, who had replaced John Barnes as the head coach, won the Caribbean Cup title and had a good run in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, losing to the United States in the quarter-finals in Washington’s RFK Stadium.

The man who has served as the Under-20 and Futsal coach, said while the initial appointment was on an interim basis, “it’s always an honour serving your country in any role regardless of anything”, and said in the three years since he was last in charge, he had improved his craft. “As each day goes by whether football or in life, it’s a learning process and this is the case with me now.”

Like most Jamaican football fans, Whitmore said he was “very disappointed” with the failure of the Reggae Boyz to advance to the CONCACAF final round, “because you always want your country to do well, regardless of the situation. We are part of the game and we have a lot to offer as far as football is concerned, so it’s always a disappointment”.

Like the skilful midfielder he was in his heyday of playing with Violet Kickers and Seba United, Whitmore deftly sidestepped questions of what in his opinion caused the breakdown with the team and who could be at fault.

“I wouldn’t want to say (what happened with the team); every coach has his own philosophy and strategy and I don’t want to point fingers.” Instead, he suggested that “the best thing for us is to develop local players and give them the international experience that they need to start playing at the level that everyone wants to see them”.

He said there was enough blame to spread around with the World Cup failure, and not just coach Schaefer. “Everyone has to sit and see where we went wrong, the JFF, the coaching staff and players as well, we can’t point out any one person.”

Whitmore also refused to get into grading Schaefer’s body of work and said while the World Cup disappointment was hard to accept, he noted that there were high points, winning the CFU Caribbean Cup and advancing to the final of the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Presently, he said, the two-game stint would not affect his work with a young but promising St James team. “It’s just two games and so it won’t disrupt anything right now, and then we have to sit down with the JFF and see where we go from there.”

Meanwhile, Whitmore’s technical staff has named a 20-man squad which will be prepared to face Suriname next week Wednesday at 8:00 pm at the Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex.

The squad is goalkeepers Andre Blake and Ryan Thompson; defenders Rosario Harriott, Damion Lowe, Ladale Ritchie, Alvas Powell, Dicoy Williams, Shaun Francis and Kemar Lawrence; midfielders Omar Holness, Andrew Vanzie, Ewan Grandison, Michael Binns, Je-Vaughn Watson, and Dwayne Ambursely; forwards Darren Mattocks, Cory Burke, Allan Ottey, Dino Willims, Owayne Gordon.