GRENOBLE, France — Reggae Girlz Head Coach Hue Menzies says that all the necessary measures have been put in place to ensure that young forward Mireya Grey arrives here ahead of their Fifa Women’s World Cup opener on Sunday.

The 20-year-old Grey was earmarked as replacement for the injured Kayla McCoy, who suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee during the Reggae Girlz’s final warm-up friendly contest against Scotland in the United Kingdom.

Though there was a toss-up between Grey and another player to fill the vacant position, Menzies and his assistants Lorne Donaldson and Andrew Price agreed on the nippy University of Washington player, who also brings that versatility to the team.

Grey, whose dazzling abilities as a striker won her the nickname “Sugar Rey”, is expected to arrive at the team base hotel on Friday.

The diminutive Seattle-born player, who last represented Jamaica at the Concacaf Under-20 championship in Trinidad and Tobago in January last year, gave Jamaicans a glimpse of her slick passing and footwork abilities during her first senior Reggae Girlz cap in the farewell game against Panama.

There were some doubts lingering over Grey’s addition due to school obligations, but Menzies revealed that all those issues have been taken care of.

“I just spoke to the manager and the school has confirmed that she can leave. I think they made academic arrangements for her to get sorted, so hopefully she will be here in the next couple of days.

“It is going to take a couple of days for her to get acclimated, but at least we will have an immediate swap in terms of the position that we want to fill to keep our rhythm going in terms of the squad that we have,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

Menzies pointed out that Grey was favoured as she is very prolific and possesses a lot of speed that makes her a huge asset to the Reggae Girlz team as a winger.

“It was always difficult to just chose a replacement because we have a good pool of players, but we had to decide on the perfect replacement based on what we want to accomplish, because we still have players with little knocks, so we have to think about that, but we just felt that Mireya was the right fit here.

“She gives us more depth up top; she is a crafty little player and the crowd liked her in Jamaica. Her positioning is great and she is a goal-scoring threat and she is not scared of taking on a defender, so she will be a livewire for us on the flanks,” Menzies reasoned.

He continued: “We pick players that fit the style of play; that is what we engage in so it doesn’t matter if they are here; or how long they are not here, they come in and they fit in because they all have the same tendencies and philosophy of the game.

“Kayla [McCoy] is a great player, a good team person, she works hard; everything that we look for in a player in our group, she has that and she is fun, which is why it is important for her to stay with us because she just brings that good vibes.”