Jamaica and the Caribbean Cup

Photo: Captain Horace Burrell – President of the Jamaica Football Federation

Jamaica must win the CFU Caribbean Cup 2014. There are no two ways about it. The first English-speaking Caribbean team to qualify for the World Cup – in France ’98, Jamaica was once the darlings of the football world. Everyone wanted to be associated with the Reggae Boyz, everyone wanted to play against the Reggae Boyz.

When Ricardo “Bibi” Gardner was selected by Sam Allerdyce’s Bolton Wanderers directly out of the World Cup, it was viewed as the launching pad for hundreds of Jamaicans to break into Europe to ply their trade in the beautiful game. Sadly, that has not happened. Most Jamaicans are currently looking at North American neighbours, the USA, for an opportunity to play the game professionally.

Sixteen years on and Jamaica is officially, once again, a minnow in world football. The FIFA world ranking of 113 has shown just how far our football has slipped, which has inevitably led to a shunning of the Reggae Boyz by potential sponsors.

The country is hosting the Caribbean Cup and the President of the Jamaica Football Federation, Captain Horace Burrell was seen on television a few days ago lashing certain sections of the private sector for not giving enough support to local football. Ten years ago that was not the case.

Fact is, the Reggae Boyz is no longer a sexy name, it has lost almost all of its appeal and to regain their once vaunted status as the best in the Caribbean, Jamaica cannot afford to do less than lift the trophy at the end of the competition on November 18th.

Jamaica produced a tepid performance in the last round of qualification for the World Cup in Brazil. They finished dead last in the “Hex” and was never in the running for qualification. Current Reggae Boyz head coach Winfried Schafer was brought in just before the end of the failed campaign to replace ’98 World Cup hero Theodore “Tappa” Whitmore but could do nothing to prevent us crashing out.

Since his time in charge the German has had only two wins in which time Jamaica has slipped to 113 in the FIFA World rankings. While Schafer has suggested that rankings are not important, Burrell has sought to do some damage control surrounding his comments after the furore it created in the local media by insisting that context was in issue in the former Cameroon head coach’s argument.

Many see the Caribbean Cup as the last chance saloon for Schafer. The Reggae Boyz does not appear to have a style of play at the moment, but the team seem to have a core of players around which it is now being built. These are two major components for successful teams and after what appeared to be one experiment after another, it appears we finally have a settled squad.

During the tournament, all the foreign based players will be available for Schafer to choose from. A full strength Reggae Boyz squad is expected to the lift the trophy and should anything else transpire, curious onlookers will be waiting with bated breaths for the call to be made by the Captain at 01:00hrs.

An inauspicious 1-1 draw with Martinique has done neither the team nor the coach any favours. Wins in the next two games are needed for the team to advance to the semi-finals.