LYON, France — With a mere five days to go before the Reggae Girlz bow into action at the Fifa Women’s World Cup, the team suffered a blow as forward Kayla McCoy has been ruled out of the campaign with a torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL).

An MRI scan yesterday confirmed the severity of the injury to the American-born player’s left knee, which she suffered during the Reggae Girlz’s 2-3 loss in a friendly contest against Scotland in the United Kingdom last Tuesday.

Both the coaching staff and McCoy’s teammates were optimistic of a full recovery as she showed signs of improvement during the team’s last two recovery sessions here in Lyon. But dismay swept across the team meeting where Head Coach Hue Menzies relayed news of the gut-wrenching MRI result to the players following another lively hour-and-a-half session at the Groupama Training Center.

Menzies revealed that while a replacement will be brought into the 23-player squad for McCoy, 22, she will remain with the group for the global showpiece, which is scheduled to begin on Friday and end on July 7.

“It’s a tough thing but she is a great kid and we are going to keep her here because that is the right thing to do. She has great vibes and great spirit; we told the team and they all huddled and hugged her which shows that these are good kids.

“It’s tough for her as well because she worked so hard to get to the World Cup, but she is coping and we as a staff and a team are comforting her as we go along. She is a fantastic individual, so we won’t even hesitate to keep her because she brings so much to the table for us and so we are going to support her,” Menzies told the Jamaica Observer.

“We are going to replace her with a player, we don’t know who as yet, but we are going to meet with the staff and decide. I am sure she [McCoy] will support us moving forward, but it’s a tough loss for us but we will deal with it,” he added.

Prior to breaking the news, Menzies and his assistants Lorne Donaldson and Andrew Price conducted a squad match where the players showed glimpses of what is to come later this week.

“The spirits are good, we got a chance to really break down some things that we need to do and I think we accomplished what we wanted to accomplish, but first we had to get their legs back underneath them.

“We did really well at that and so today (yesterday) we just had to refocus their minds and I think we did that with the inter-squad scrimmage where we just kind of went over certain things. We also filmed it so we are just going to go over that footage and fix some things, but overall the spirit has been great,” Menzies reasoned.

The tactician also lauded captain Konya Plummer and her team for showing initiative in conducting a clear the air meeting without the coaches’ interference.

“It’s a definite positive because at the end of the day, they are the ones playing the game. We facilitate and that is all we are doing right now. So like I said, at the end of the day, they have to be the ones out there communicating and it is their team and it shows the leadership and accountability on their end which is always good, so we encourage more of that,” Menzies ended.

The 53rd-ranked Reggae Girlz are set to open their account against Brazil in Grenoble on Sunday, after which they will battle Italy in Reims on June 14, before travelling back to Grenoble to close the group phase against Australia on June 18.

After the preliminary group stage, the top two teams will automatically progress to the June 23-25 Round of 16 where they will be joined by the four best third-placed teams. From there, teams will then progress to the June 27-29 quarter-finals to battle for semi-final berths.

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