REGGAE BOYZ NEED A ‘QUICK FIX’ BY WAY OF A DEVELOPMENTAL COACH

Jamaica begins the final round of matches on October 12 when they play Guatemala at the Mateo Flores Stadium knowing that beating Guatemala and Antigua will guarantee them a place in the final qualifying round for the FIFA World Cup that comes up in Brazil in 2014. The final match of the round will be played at the National Stadium on October 16 against Antigua and Barbuda.

The Reggae Boyz are currently locked in a three-way tie on points with the United States and Guatemala but they trail both teams on goal difference. The USA and Guatemala have both scored six goals and conceded four, while Jamaica, never known for its high scoring performances have scored four goals while conceding three.

One of the reasons why Jamaica trails on goal difference is due mainly to missed opportunities against Guatemala where at home in June, and not doing a good enough job in the final third against Antigua and against the United States in their last match when they went down 0-1 to the home team in Ohio. Jamaica has always struggled to score goals and that lies in the fact that the Boyz lack the right system of play in the final third, they might also lack the players with the technical and tactical skills.

From a system’s perspective, Jamaica plays reasonably well from its defensive third through to its mid-field. However, from there going forward is where most of the problems lie. Jamaica has a tendency to kick the ball forward more in hope that someone will be there at the end of it, but that’s not how one plays football. There has to be a plan to get players forward in sufficient numbers and then a plan to maintain possession and employing patience as the team looks to create gaps in the opposing team’s defensive line.

What currently happens is that the ball is kicked forward and if a Reggae Boy happens to gain possession he – more often than not – has no one to pass to. If the player is on the flank, he swings the ball across into the 18-yard box where maybe, if he is lucky, there will be two teammates waiting in between six defensive players which invariably means they give up possession and are forced to retreat.

That being said, the area that I think needs most improvement is the midfield and forwards ability to show for the ball, receive and pass consistently. In many of the games Jamaican defenders and midfielders won possession of the ball but had too few options to make a safe and constructive passes. This is a huge weakness in terms of their ability to dictate the tempo of a game and consistently create good scoring chances for the forwards. Jamaica must develop the ability to consistently break teams down by playing through the lines instead of relying on the kick and run that has been evident in a number of their games.

But how do they fix this? This round of competition is almost over but assuming all goes to plan and Jamaica advances to the final qualifying round, the Reggae Boyz are likely to run into teams like Mexico, Costa Rica, and Honduras teams that punish mediocre play and with only three teams to advance to Rio, Jamaica cannot afford to finish fourth.

This means Jamaica needs to find itself a good developmental coach, one that can address these problems and get Jamaica better prepared for the qualification campaign. That coach needs to have worked in a youth system who has the ability to develop player skills and develop them quickly. In short, Jamaica needs a certified UEFA coach, who has a passion for working with players who need to enhance their skills as well as coaches who might not be of the highest standard. The coach must also have an understanding of the players’ culture as this will make it easier to connect with the players more quickly. Breaking down communication barriers is paramount if the players are to learn as fast as possible and put Jamaica on a path to really compete if and when it advances to the final round and ultimately play better quality football when the team gets to Rio in two years’ time.

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8 Responses to “REGGAE BOYZ NEED A ‘QUICK FIX’ BY WAY OF A DEVELOPMENTAL COACH”

carol says:

September 30, 2012 at 5:54 am

You hit the nail on the head. During Jamaica’s historic birth in 1998,Jamaica has not improved their pattern of play.coach Whitmore is not the man for this position.Jamaica distribute the ball slowly and is very comforotable playing in a defensive mode. The USA and other teams such as Colombia and Honduras shown guts and determmination. Trinidad also has stepped up its game …..ones individual talent does not constitute goals .professor simones said it bluntly the players knows everything they are like penguins with the ball…Ricardo example plays a different pattern of $football when playing in the English league .unfortunately other carbibbean teams have stepped up their game
Paul Banta says:

October 3, 2012 at 6:19 am

The JFF has chosen the path for their senior player development and they have secured enough coaches to do this for the present time.

What lies ahead for youth and coaching development in Jamaica can not solved for several years. All this should have happened after 98 and with a plan for development and it’s not as easy as many in Jamaica think.

We read allot about what the JFF should do by outsiders and most of it has been not needed for it doesn’t build up but rather tears down and needless to say we will get a few negative comments again by those out there who think they might have the solution but yet have not experiences what football development is about at the international level. So we take them with a grain of salt.

The writer is right regarding someone who 1) understands the culture and the people and how to develop their talent 2) and also right that some could come in but only to advise and guide the present staff (with a new plan) that have spent time in development with much more needed efforts needed after the W/C and redirected in the areas for future development. These present coaches and a selected group of other potentially new talented Jamaica coaches selected (only by this development technical adviser recommendation) can do the job. A period of time of coaching and then player development will have to take place and with in a structure that is put down on paper and followed.

“If we expect one single person to revolutionize the game away from what CONCACAF development is doing would be a very wrong move”.

In September 2009 development plan was submitted to the JFF and a meeting followed (2010) with our organization and the JFF. They eventually chose to go another route (Brazilians and this was absolutely favorable at the time for help was urgently wanted) and we wished them the very best.

Below is a shorter version outline of this development plan presented. I’ve been a coaching educator for over 25 years around the world, I had the pleasure of being married to a Jamaican, coached in Jamaica as well as many other places. This written program might have been a very helpful start. Once the W/C is over another look could be taken for the future as Jamaica is more than 10 years behind in football development which includes youth elite player development, coaching of youth through senior football develop, league system for players for youth through senior players, more fields for training and playing surfaces with a synthetic turf system (more regional usage), match play for the best youth at an international level, a nation wide youth elite developmental league ages U13, U15, U17 and U20, insert a potential future national team into the premiership league for more matches for the next W/C.
—————————–
A Proposal for a National Coaching Educational
Development Program for Coaches and Players Development Scheme

Submitted To Howard McIntosh Chairman of the Technical & Development Committee (at his request) of the JFF

By Paul Banta (September 2009)
———————————–
Table of Contents

Jamaica Football Development
Page …………………………………………………………3
Where Do We Begin?
Page …………………………………………………………6
New Coaching Education Course Ideas
Page …………………………………………………………9
New National Coaching Course Levels
Page …………………………………………………………11
National Team Development
Page …………………………………………………………12
Conclusion
Page …………………………………………………………13

——————————

The following are Exerts from Where Do We Begin?
Page …………………………………………………………6

What about the future?

If the past is not going to guide us in the direction for our future then how do we go about creating football for the future of Jamaica so we could be a challenge to the world beyond CONCACAF. Those of us in football are the deciders of the direction of the future; the destiny makers who are to ensure a system is put in place to coach the game better than before. Success with the right plan and allot of effort could make Jamaica richer in so many ways. There is need to create a path to run on as soon as possible. The correct way to coach and play the game must be taught to Jamaica’s society. This will have great rewards for so many people inside and outside this great sport and to tell the football world we have a product worth knowing about and to compete against.

Football is a sport that can change the hearts of men and women of this nation if done with a greater purpose in mind. We simply have to find that way to fight the cause with new weapons, prepare to battle and be winners while all in the football community join together as one family. Everyone of us willing to use his or her abilities to create a football nation that will change from the present various opinions and state of being, which many see themselves entrapped, to one of great reconciliation and hope for its population with the football industry of Jamaica its centre piece.

A football developmental plan is essential for any country and it should lay in the factors of the country, the potential resources which are the players, coaches, facilities and administrators of the game. If the resources are not there or not identified then the football standard will not be relevant to the federation and the FIFA region it belongs. Therefore football development cannot be put in place regardless of how hard those resources try.

The idea that football development is taking place is only going to be relative to where your national team’s success lay. The structure inside the country must be properly developed, replicated, evaluated and improved continuously. The results from this consistent hard work will yield international benefits by developing players that can win at those levels and a football industry with massive potential for growth.

I believe, notwithstanding the size of the country of Jamaica, developing higher quality players is a must, a great possibility and can be achieved with a programme that will be developed. Have we not heard for years from within Jamaica and without, “The Talent is in Jamaica it just needs to be developed”?

This would be a plan for Jamaica and not for neighboring confederation countries. I believe that resources can be made available to help this become a reality and develop these resources within the country that in time will provide football development to take place year after year. Football development should allow for coaches to be educators of the game for coaching their training sessions and matches and develop players, who are capable of playing the match using their natural talents to compete world wide not just through local play, but for players to go beyond CONCACAF in play, to bring a standard of semi-professional players to a new level of professionalism worthy to be marketed in the football industry.
Messengjah says:

October 4, 2012 at 7:23 am

We simply need to look at the schoolboy competitions to see where the problems begin. Sometimes the scorelines read 10-0 or 6-0 and the winning coaches go off thinking that they have great teams. The fact is the winning teams appeared strong because the losers really did not belong in the competition to begin with.

A strong youth development program is what’s needed to feed the senior program. Without such a developmental program we will be forever relying on the notion that the overseas players are professionals and can take us to the world cup. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the cream of the foreign born players are not the ones putting up their hands to play for Jamaica, but rather those who are at best average and plying their trade in the lower level leagues of the countries of their birth.
Milton Anglin says:

October 4, 2012 at 1:53 pm

The effective developmental program will be limited by the objectives and vision of
the national football administration, the national coaches, the club coaches and the pool of players for the national football team.
Therefore the developmental program should articulate winning objectives in it’s charter and also state winning ongoing evaluation criteria for the administration and coaches.
It stands to reason that it is more important to have successful administrators and coaches, rather than to merely certify former professional players and make them into coaches and administrators.
let me break this down a little bit if one follows FIFA’S cuurent coahing licencing structure then what we have is former players, who after having played so many without approaching anything close to winning a championship, being licensed by passing exams, and thereby becoming coaches and football administrators. They then inculcate the same kinds of approaches to the game that brought no championships to their former teams and so you have an endless cycle, a revolving door experience. The standard FIFA coaching license are great for coaches who come from countries with a long line of world cup top tier football players. Coach FIFA coaching licenses are not transformational the merely represent the written theoretical general standards of preparation for the international game. This does not guarantee success in the international arena for countries with minimal pool of international players.
It has been my observation that for smaller nations to break into the top tier of
world footballing success,They the small countries, such as Jamaica, will have to take exceptional and radical approaches to the administration, the coaching approaches, and the preparation of players for the game.
The radical approaches would include cross disciplinary training for the players and cross disciplinary thinking and planning on the part of the administrators and coaches. A good reference point is the modern sport of Mixed martial arts in which the athletes train in many different styles not just in one traditional system of martial arts. Success in most sports today require an openness to novel training approaches and innovative thinking.
People who are stuck in a particular mode, people who are closed to innovative concepts from various sources etc. will have the same limited results year after year after year, and tournament after tournament after tournament.
There are people out there with various types of resources and resourcefullness it is time for the JFF to tap into that wider pool of resources and resourcefulness, whether in training capicities or advisory capacities
One particular school from Montego Bay, won the Dacosta cup and Oliver Shield in 2001 when the players were being conditioned by a martial arts Instructor. Dane Richards, if I recall rightly was a member of that team.
Bearing in mind that Football (Soccer)
has A. A sport Aspect, B. A scientific aspect
and C. An Artistic aspect:
I present a short list of training requirements for success in football:
1.Sports Psychology,
2.Sports Nutrition
3.Mind-body reaction kinetics
4.Dynamic cross training/ multi-disciplinary
physical conditioning
5.Injury prevention (Self protection) training.
6.Sports science
Paul Lauder says:

October 7, 2012 at 8:20 am

Gentlemen with all said the problem lies with money and that is why the Captain have to work with what makes the resources stay alive. Its evident Whitmore lacks vision but i still dont see the need for the Brazilians at this time with the selection process being wrong ever since, what tactical advice are these persons giving.Why a country with so much professionals we cannot select the best people and the experts are contracted to do so. Captain, i think you are getting weak
Debbie says:

October 11, 2012 at 1:21 pm

They have no gumption! No must win attitude. It is as if the team doesn’t believe that they should and deserve to win and win good. They aim for mediocrity.
lloyd hall says:

October 15, 2012 at 3:32 pm

i think the coach should step down, for he lacks the drive and influence to make Reggae Boys a winning team.
What is Burton doing in the team,remember 1998 world cup,check the amount of miss oppertunities
from that brother.
The team wants to win with more local players
with guts,these professionals have to bach to work tomorrow,the locals needs a chance to show what they can do. Remember Gardner in that world cup. He is local and wanted to prove himself, even Withmore had wome thing to prove.
When I see these professionals in these big leagues i am proud of them as Jamaicans for they are so good,but as Reggae Boys they just another player from whatever team.
lloyd hall says:

October 15, 2012 at 3:33 pm

i think the coach should step down, for he lacks the drive and influence to make Reggae Boys a winning team.
What is Burton doing in the team,remember 1998 world cup,check the amount of miss oppertunities
from that brother.
The team wants to win with more local players
with guts,these professionals have to bach to work tomorrow,the locals needs a chance to show what they can do. Remember Gardner in that world cup. He is local and wanted to prove himself, even Withmore had something to prove.
When I see these professionals in these big leagues i am proud of them as Jamaicans for they are so good,but as Reggae Boys they just another player from whatever team.