Rene Simoes will be the first to admit that he does not play favourites when it comes to football players.

In the same breath, he will be the first to tell you that there are players from his France 1998 World Cup qualifying “dream team” who have left an indelible mark.In a setting of multiple personalities, the charismatic Brazilian coach was successful in getting all on one page. He also left his imprint on many of these players who, prior to 1994, were clueless that the future had something remarkable in store for them.These local amateurs helped propel Simoes to god-like stature in Jamaica and he, in turn, catapulted his players to a heady dimension that was alien to them. What was without dispute is that, arm in arm, they walked the lofty realms of football’s success stories.They may not have conquered the World Cup stage in the purest ssense, and they were not truly expected to, but they did capture the imagination of the wider world with their fairytale France qualification.Raw and rough around the edges, Simoes — through an aggressive and broad-based programme — polished his Reggae Boyz to a majestic gleam.Jamaica’s football had arrived and was the source of immense pride and inspiration for a country that needed any lift it could get during those magical years of 1997 and 1998.And it was due in the main to a bunch of local-bred players who drove the dream, and Simoes pays tribute.“Durrant Brown was very special as he had the balance… Linval Dixon was also good and young Ian Goodison, who became a special player because I took him from second division,” said the Brazilian on a recent visit to Jamaica.“What can I say about Ricardo “Bibi” (Gardner); he was only 16 years old when I called him. His personality is unbelievable and he was so fearless, and that is why he has had the success,” Simoes told the

Jamaica Observer.The Brazilian coach also spoke glowingly of the late Peter Cargill, who he claims approached him to try out for the team.“He (Cargill) had something that we missed in the early games as he was a leader. He reads the game and he works as a coach on the field… one day as I was in Mona and he came and said ‘coach I want to try out for your team’ and he told me where he has played.“The first time he trained, I said ‘there is my man’.”Simoes said the late Stephen ‘Shorty’ Malcolm was the player who got the players pumped up ahead of games with his infectious personality.“Then there is “Shorty” Malcolm and he was like a virus, and he was the vibe of the team, and he was the one that got everyone into the fever,” the Brazilian recalled.It is well known that the personal relationship between the irrepressible striker Walter “Blacka” Boyd and Simoes was not always cordial, but there was sufficient mutual respect to go around.“Of course Walter Boyd (I like) for his ability as he was amazing and everybody thought I didn’t like him, but I liked so much about him,” Simoes noted.Theodore “Tappa” Whitmore was another standout player on the ‘Road To France’ campaign, but the ball magician took it one step farther, when he scored two brilliant goals for Jamaica’s only victory at the World Cup, clipping fellow debutants Japan 2-1.“He (Whitmore) was so classy, the way the ball loves him and his feet loving the ball — that was just fantastic, it’s like a marriage.“But there were so many players with different personalities, but I enjoyed them all,” Simoes said.Though he impacted the players in almost every aspect of their lives, the well-travelled Brazilian coach thinks he could have done better for a number of players if the skills he now has was available then.Simoes is currently a master coach, mentoring other coaches at the Brazilian Sports Coaching Society headed by Villela da Matta.“What I do in Brazil now, instead of coaching on the field, is help coaches unlock the strength, ability and knowledge they have inside and allow them to find and reach their purpose faster than before.“The knowledge that I have now about coaching would have helped Walter Boyd and Onandi Lowe much more in their lives. In 1994 and 1998, my programme was to reach the World Cup by strategy, but we didn’t have a programme to help people, and I think I could have helped a little bit more there.“For this course I did life coaching, business coaching, executive coaching, positive psychology coaching, so I am now well prepared as a master coach to do things differently. Back then, I am proud of what I did, but I know that I could have done better with these new skills,” Simoes explained.Boyd and Lowe — local crowd favourites and two of the strong personalities in Simoes’ squad — are widely thought to have not reached self-actualisation based on their potential and promise.