All the best to HVFC players Fabian Grant (also of Camperdown High), Maliek Howell & Tyreek Magee (both also of Jamaica College), Coaches / HVFC internationals Ricardo Gardner & Altimont Butler, and the National under-20 team in the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Qualifiers!
The Jamaica Under-20 team is set to depart the island in two groups today for the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Under-20 qualifiers in Dominican Republic.
One part of the Jamaican delegation is scheduled to travel from Kingston to Santo Domingo via Miami this morning. The second group is to leave this afternoon, taking a route through Panama City before landing in Santo Domingo.
The squad of 20 footballers has a majority of players who were part of a previous batch of the national Under-17 set-up.
Head Coach Ricardo Gardner, his assistant Altimont Butler, and the rest of the coaching staff had training sessions with the team right up to the eve of their departure yesterday.
“For what it’s worth, things went well,” Butler told the Jamaica Observer after Friday’s practice at the Jamaica Football Federation Technical Centre in Mona.
“When we started, we only had them twice a month, so we have them like six days in a month. Over six months that’s like 18 days, but recently we had them for an entire week, and the training went well, with the response from the players. There were others factors such as [lack of] international games, high quality games…those are the struggles,” the former Jamaica senior player said.
Butler said he is pleased with the composition of the squad after a relatively extensive recruitment process.
“We looked at over 100 players and it came down to the final 20, though coming down to the end there were a couple of injuries [which ruled out players]. We have a balanced squad. We had to select players who we thought would fit well into the system we are trying to employ out there,” he said.
The CFU qualifying tournament is scheduled to run from June 15-19.
The young Reggae Boyz are drawn in Group Four alongside the host nation, Dominica, and St Kitts and Nevis.
Jamaica are to open their account versus Dominica on Wednesday, before meeting St Kitts and Nevis on Friday. They are set to close off against Dominican Republic on Sunday.
Only the top team from the group is assured of advancing to the CFU Championship.
Gardner Positive Ahead Of CFU Qualifiers
Although Jamaica’s Under-20 team will face the age-old problem of not enough preparation time, coach Ricardo ‘Bibi’ Gardner, believes they have done enough to see the team through.
But despite not having the time he would like with the squad, Gardner says the team has been making progress and doesn’t anticipate any hiccups when they travel to the Dominican Republic on Monday.
“Most of the players are schoolboys so we don’t get that much time together, this week is the longest we have had together, it’s over a week and the preparation has been decent so far.
“We would want a lot more than the time we have had with them but we have seen progress with the players we have here. We have played (friendly) games and we see where they try and execute and we are seeing some pretty decent stuff, especially some of what we have been practicing in training,” he noted.
With the preparation they have had, the former national representative does not foresee much difficulty at the tournament, as he believes they will have too much for the regional minnows.
“You can see where we are developing step by step hopefully we go straight into the tournament like this. The goal is to give of our best and I think our best will be good enough. We are not going to play against breeze. We don’t know much about them and I am sure they don’t know much about us, but we have prepared the team the way we want to play and I am sure if we go out and execute we will come out on top,” Gardner said.
“We are a very strong from defence to offence and with the bunch of players we have, we believe we have prepared well enough to go there and deliver,” he added.
The Jamaicans will open their campaign against Dominica on June 15 before facing St Kitts and Nevis on June 17 and the host two days later.
Sources: The Jamaica Observer, The Jamaica Gleaner