There is apparent consensus among knowledgeable football watchers that Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz were far less than impressive in their 1-0 win over New Caledonia in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Thursday.

As our reporter noted, the national team missed too many goal-scoring chances and was forced to endure considerable pressure in the World Cup qualifying play-off football match.

The most important thing of course is that they won — something which everyone knows is far more important than aesthetics.

It means Jamaica are through to the final qualifying game against seeded Democratic Republic of Congo out of Central Africa on Tuesday, also in Guadalajara.

Victory against DR Congo will mean a place at the FIFA World Cup in United States, Mexico, and Canada in mid-year — the first such for a Jamaica senior men’s football team since qualifying for the 1998 global showpiece in France.

That’s an achievement that was virtually taken for granted by many people late last year, only for the national team to slip up badly in the final Concacaf qualifying round, ending up as runners-up to lower-ranked Curacao.

The latter, as many readers will know, are being celebrated as the smallest nation to reach a FIFA Men’s World Cup.

We believe Reggae Boyz Captain Mr Andre Blake made sense in his observation that, while his team will need to improve next Tuesday, there were pluses on Thursday night, including keeping a “clean sheet”.

And his quip that, “You also have to be able to win 1-0 games…” is by no means misplaced.

While crediting New Caledonia for “fighting for every pass” and defending “with their lives”, Jamaica interim Head Coach Mr Rudolph Speid suggests that had his team been more efficient and scored more of their goal-scoring chances “we would have been out of sight”.

Maybe so.

But we believe it’s also important to bear in mind that, while he worked closely with the bulk of the overseas-based pros representing Jamaica on Thursday night, he was in a competitive game as their head coach for the very first time.

It will be remembered that Mr Speid was technical advisor to Englishman Mr Steve McClaren up to the latter’s departure as head coach late last year.

Since taking over on an interim basis, Mr Speid has been in charge of mostly local-based national players in two away friendlies against Caribbean neighbours Grenada and Martinique recently.

For the most part the overseas-based professionals were unavailable for those games.

Until this week, since the start of 2026, there were no FIFA windows allowing professionals time off from their clubs to play for country.

It seems reasonable to suppose that Mr Speid, his staff, and players would have needed time to adjust.

Having got past New Caledonia, all are aware that they have just a few days to better gel and nurture greater understanding ahead of the do-or-die clash with DR Congo.

There surely will be no complacency on the part of the Reggae Boyz.

For, as Mr Speid observed, DR Congo are a “good team” ranked much higher than Jamaica. And, also, they defeated traditional African powerhouse Nigeria “to get here”.

Commitment and motivation on the part of everyone in the Reggae Boyz group will be crucial.

We wish our players, coaches, and support staff the very best as they set out to make us all extremely proud.