NATIONAL Under-17 men’s football team Head Coach Merron Gordon is keeping strategies and tactics to himself ahead of their Concacaf Under-17 Men’s Championship game against Cuba in Guatemala today.

The young Reggae Boyz are campaigning, through this tournament, to qualify for the FIFA Under-17 Men’s World Cup in Peru this November.

Gordon is mindful that Costa Rica and Guadeloupe — who Jamaica also play in Group G later this week — could be watching and scouting his team, and does not want to give anything away about how his squad will set up against Cuba.

Instead, he told the Jamaica Observer that team morale is high, even in spite of a travel mishap that caused 14 players to arrive at the camp late because they did not get their visa-exemption letter on time.

“We all know about the flight situation but we moved past that now,” Gordon said on Saturday. “The boys that were in Jamaica had a training session yesterday (Friday) morning; the ones that came over with me had a training session yesterday evening. So, everyone has gotten a session in already. This evening we’re gonna do a match day minus one training session.

“The boys are in good spirits. I had a meeting with them this morning — the ones that just came — to welcome them and also to lay out some guidelines in terms of how we move, and so on and so forth, so we’re in good spirits.”

Gordon’s preparation started in late December with a 30-man squad, which was then cut to a final team of 20. Following this they played two international friendly matches against Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) who are in Group B of the tournament. The Reggae Boyz won both games 1-0.

Gordon says the major objective is to win Group G, and to do so he has found clips of matches played by Cuba and Costa Rica to help him understand who they are up against.

The Boyz are looking to qualify for their third-ever FIFA Under-17 World Cup, having already done so in 1999 and 2011. But Gordon is aware that qualifying will be difficult.

“To make it to a World Cup is not an easy thing but I think the boys have the grit and determination that can make us push through,” he said. “With our coaching staff, with the experienced Wendell Downswell [who took the team to the World Cup on both occasions] and us, we plan and challenge each other every day just to see how much we can push these boys to the limit.”

Jamaica may look to Orane Wilson and Adrian Reid to provide the spark for them in front of goal as both provided winners against T&T last week.

They may be buoyed by being the first national team to wear the new adidas gear but it is not yet known whether they will wear the gold-coloured home kits or the black away version.

“We were able to carry the away kits with us, which arrived in Jamaica yesterday,” Jamaica Football Federation General Secretary Dennis Chung said in a voice note to stakeholders on Saturday. “We were able to clear them and send them to the team with a staff member who was travelling after the last set of boys yesterday.

“But, we were not able to print numbers on them so we are attempting to do that in Guatemala. If we are not able to, then we will have to wear the home jerseys which are there, printed with numbers. This closes off the chapter on the incident that occurred with the U-17 Boyz, and we are hoping that they do their best. They sound very excited to qualify for the U-17 World Cup this year.”

The game takes place in Guatemala City with the kick-off at 5:00 pm.