Like Mr Merron Gordon, many Jamaicans are still struggling to come to terms with Jamaica’s failure to qualify automatically from their Concacaf group for next year’s FIFA World Cup.

Mr Gordon, until recently, a national assistant coach, told this newspaper that the feeling of extreme disappointment will “never go”.

As readers may recall, many had taken Jamaica’s qualification for the World Cup as virtually guaranteed because of a perceived “easy” group draw with Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao, and Bermuda.

As it turned out, Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz — despite their far higher rating — had to be content with second place.

Highly technical and tactical Curacao topped the group to become the smallest nation to qualify for a senior men’s World Cup.

But as informed football followers are aware, come March, Jamaica will have a second chance at qualifying — albeit very challenging — in intercontinental play-offs.

They will first face largely unfancied New Caledonia, ranked 150th in the world by FIFA. Should they win, the Reggae Boyz will be up against higher ranked and seeded nation Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) out of Africa, five days later.

Any inclination by the Reggae Boyz towards complacency ahead of the contest with Oceania’s New Caledonia is now surely held at bay by recent experiences. Nonetheless, we feel reassured by interim head coach Mr Rudolph Speid that nothing will be taken for granted.

His view that New Caledonia poses added danger because so little is known about them makes perfect sense, in our view. And as is the case with a lot of international teams nowadays, New Caledonia, like Jamaica, feature quite a few foreign-based professionals.

In the case of DR Congo, some of Europe’s leading stars are a part of that squad.

Scouting opponents is obviously a big part of preparations now being carried out by Mr Speid and his coaching crew. In the case of New Caledonia, he is relying heavily on recorded video evidence, even while recognising that changes to that squad are likely to be ongoing.

Regarding DR Congo, the Africa Cup of Nations competition now into its final stages, provided opportunity for Mr Speid to watch first hand.

A near three-day trip to Morocco allowed him to watch “interesting” DR Congo lose a tight game 0-1 to traditional North African giants Algeria in their round-of-16 clash.

As explained by Mr Speid, he gained insights which would not have been possible had he been purely reliant on television/video footage.

As the situation now stands, Mr Speid has named a provisional squad of more than 50 players packed with familiar, mostly overseas-based players. That squad will obviously be whittled down as the time of reckoning approaches.

Close on the horizon, the Reggae Boyz are scheduled to play a friendly international away to Grenada on January 18. A group of mostly local-based players is currently in a training camp preparing for that encounter.

Beyond that, Mr Speid says he is still looking at players outside the current provisional squad.

Said he: “We are sending out invitations this week to other players in the Americas and Eastern Europe to ask if they are available. And if they are, we’ll add them to the squad.”

Among those, apparently, is Mr Mason Greenwood, a star attacker — born in England of Jamaican ancestry. He has played for England but ran into trouble and was sidelined following allegations of domestic abuse.

Mr Greenwood has been consistently courted by the Jamaica Football Federation since the fallout with the land of his birth. But though he has gone so far as to secure a Jamaican passport, he has not yet committed to Jamaica. As our reporter pointed out this week, the situation has divided opinion among Jamaicans.

But Mr Speid is clear that “we still hope to get him” and further that “we just have to keep building our squad and hope that he shows up at some point”.

For our part, we recognise the great value that the talented Mr Greenwood can bring to the table. But also, we feel sure that Mr Speid and his team will be well aware that under no circumstances should precious team chemistry and motivation be endangered.