National senior men’s Head Coach Heimir Hallgrimsson is urging his players to use their upcoming friendly matches against Qatar and Jordan as opportunities to cement their spots on the team for the upcoming Concacaf Gold Cup tournament.

The Reggae Boyz will face Qatar on June 15 and Jordan on June 19 at the Wiener Neustadt Ergo Arena in Austria.

According to Hallgrimsson, both matches form a very important part of the Reggae Boyz’s preparation for the biennial tournament. Crucially, the upcoming assignments will be used to select the squad for the Gold Cup.

“The games are equally important as every training from now until the Gold Cup,” Hallgrimsson told the Jamaica Observer. “These matches won’t give you any points, but for the players they are important because they will be fighting for their spots on the team for the Gold Cup. I hope we can have a strong team in this preparation and I hope we can get close to finding a Gold Cup squad in these matches,” Hallgrimsson stated.

The 2023 Concacaf Gold Cup is scheduled for June 24 to July 16 in the United States and Canada.

The Jamaicans have made the Gold Cup finals twice, in 2015 and 2017, and made it to a disappointing quarter-final phase in the last edition, when they lost to eventual champions the USA.

The 55-year-old Hallgrimsson, who was appointed head coach of the Reggae Boyz team in September of last year, is still searching for his first win with the Jamaican team, but to his credit, led the team in an exciting 2-2 draw away to Mexico in the Concacaf Nations League recently.

Hallgrimsson pointed out that he is confident that the Reggae Boyz will put on a good showing in the Austria matches.

“I am optimistic that we will do well in these two matches, but the most important thing is that we use them well for preparing for the Gold Cup. This is our only preparation for the Gold Cup, so we will be taking them very seriously for sure,” he said.

“We are still trying to get our system on the players as to how we play as a team, and it is also good, not only for the development of the squad, not only for the Gold Cup, but for the future,” said the Iceland-born coach.

Hallgrimsson also underlined that his coaching staff will not be taking anything for granted because they will be selecting the best available players for both games.

“It is an opportunity to see some players that we have never seen before; it is an opportunity to give some players some playing time,” he said.

“It is also important because as a national team coach you don’t get many games, so every game is important for us.

“We will try to have as many [of our best players] as possible but we will not pick the squad yet because a lot of players are still playing [in clubs]. So, we don’t need to pick the squad [as] we are just monitoring the players at the moment,” Hallgrimsson said.