Boyz target friendly against another World Cup-bound nation
PRESIDENT of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) Micheal Ricketts says his organisation is currently in negotiations with a Fifa World Cup-bound country to play a friendly international game against Reggae Boyz ahead of next month’s showpiece in Qatar.
“We will go to Cameroon for a friendly international next month and we are, as we speak, having some discussions [to arrange] a team to play [against] just before the start of the World Cup, but that we cannot officially speak on,” Ricketts told the Jamaica Observer.
“But we will definitely be playing a match because next year is the Gold Cup and so [we] will definitely be giving the [men’s team] some preparation time as well,” he said.
“We are at the embryonic stage now because we have just started the discussions and so we are just hoping that things will work for us,” Ricketts opined, adding that the federation will make an announcement once the arrangements are finalised.
While refusing to name the country that they are negotiating with, Ricketts nevertheless hinted it will most likely be a team currently ranked in the top 20 in the world.
The Reggae Boyz are scheduled to face Cameroon on November 9 in Cameroon, which is not a sanctioned Fifa date, and JFF boss shared that, like the Jamaicans, the African side will be without a number of their overseas-based players for the contest.
He noted that with the absence of the overseas-based players, Reggae Boyz Head Coach Heimir Hallgrimsson will be using the match to have a look at the locally based players.
“This is all a part of the federation’s plans which is to have our respective teams playing top-quality games against the best teams in the world because we have Cameroon coming up in Cameroon and we recently played against Argentina,” Ricketts said.
The Reggae Boyz, who are ranked 64th in the world, were beaten 0-3 by the number three-rated Argentina in a friendly international game at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey last month.
The 2023 Gold Cup tournament is scheduled to be held in the United States from June 26 to July 16.
