Interim Head Coach Paul Hall went to bed on Tuesday night with a heavy heart.

For the English-born coach expressed mixed feelings with his Reggae Boyz’s performance in their Concacaf Nations League game against Mexico at the National Stadium, describing the exercise as a missed opportunity to beat one of the region’s heavyweight teams. The game ended 1-1, but there were quite a few chances for the Jamaicans to snatch all three points.

Leon Bailey, who delivered one of his most positive performances in a Jamaica shirt, arrived in the box in the fourth minute to head the Reggae Boyz into the lead, but the locals’ solid first-half showing was spoilt when Luis Romo rose highest to respond for the Mexicans with a header of his own during first-half added time.

“I said to the players, ‘Look, don’t play Mexico, play the game,’ because there’s this thing that Mexico is a big team and they are a big team, but I believe that my team could have beaten them today,” Hall lamented to reporters after the match.

“We started the game and Leon got into the box. He was the only person in the box that showed the desire and the commitment to get into the box. We finished that off and we went on and, you know, after a few scares, we were quite comfortable. And then we switched off our concentration.

“But again, it was a winnable game and I thought that Mexico got away with one even though they had a good deal of possession and they had some good chances for themselves,” said Hall.

Hall, who started all three games for Jamaica at the 1998 World Cup, believes the Jamaicans were deserving of all three points.

“I wanted the players to win this game today, I felt they deserved it. I felt they had worked well in the week and if I’m being honest, I think we’ve paid them [Mexico] a little bit too much respect and I said that to the players,” said Hall. “We allowed a goal to go in; we gave them that goal. We gave it to them from a lack of concentration and somebody not doing their job… but it’s something to work on.”

Despite Mexico not bothering to call the bulk of their starters, Hall believes there is still some positives to take from the result and performance.

“Whether it was the strongest team or not, Mexico is Mexico, and you can’t take that away from the players. Mexico actually did quite well with their second or third [string] team. They’re going to the World Cup, you know, and they probably could go with their second string to the World Cup. So, we can’t take anything away from Mexico. I believe that we are starting to grow… that game a few months ago, we probably would have lost it, but like I said, we still need to do better,” said Hall, who shared that he will be looking to improve the current players and scout for talent to bring into the squad.

“There will be lots of searching, lots of speaking to players, lots of trying to improve the group and bring a lot more quality into the squad so that we can grow,” said Hall.

Meanwhile, Hall indicated that he is hoping to sign a fresh deal with the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) soon.

“We’ll [let] all this dust settle and make sure that we can sit down and talk about a future with the JFF. I wanted to get this game out of the way and then we’ll talk in the future, but yes, at this moment in time I’m happy with the support from the JFF,” said Hall.

The soon-to-be 50-year-old coach took control of the national senior men’s team after Theodore Whitmore’s sacking in December last year.

With Tuesday’s result, the Jamaicans secured their place in next year’s Concacaf Gold Cup. They will face Mexico away in the return fixture on March 26, 2023.

— Andre Lowe