Dalton Wint, general secretary of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) said it will be important for Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz to make a good impression when they play The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in two international friendly games next month at the Prince Faisal bin Fahad Stadium in Riyadh.

The JFF announced yesterday that Jamaica will play two games against KSA over a four-day period and says this “will be the start of the campaign” for a busy summer of 2021 when they will participate in the Concacaf Gold Cup and the final round of the Fifa World Cup Qualifiers.

The games are set to be played on November 14 and 17 and Wint told the Jamaica Observer they will be seeking to field their “strongest available team as this will affect our Fifa rankings as well”.

A number of new players have been linked to the Reggae Boyz pool of players, but Wint said he was unable to speak to the players Head Coach Theodore Whitmore and his technical staff would be looking to utilise. “That is the purview of the coaches, they are the ones who will have to tell you who are the players they are planning to use.”

Since the forced lockdown of the National Premier League in March due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic, local players have not been able to take to the field for any competitive action, and with the games being set for a month’s time, it is unrealistic for these players to regain match fitness and sharpness in time.

Efforts to contact Whitmore proved futile, as he was said to be in technical meetings yesterday.

Jamaica last played KSA three years ago on October 17 in Riyadh and were beaten 5-2.

The Reggae Boyz have been drawn in Group C for the Concacaf Gold Cup that will be played next July and will face seeded team Costa Rica as well as Suriname and a fourth team to be added from the qualifying round involving Guatemala, Guyana, Guadeloupe and Bahamas.

Jamaica are among 12 teams that qualified directly for the main draw in the tournament that will start proper on July 10, 2021, while the Fifa World Cup Qualifiers is set to start soon afterwards.

— Paul Reid