QUALITY POSSESSIONS COULD YIELD BETTER RESULTS FOR REGGAE BOYZ

Jamaica plays Costa Rica in a couple of days with their confidence bruised after a poor performance at home against Panama last Friday night. Jamaica took the early lead but relinquished it in the 65th minute. The match ended 1-1, which I had predicted, but many Jamaicans would have been crestfallen because they expected a win where I didn’t not see one. In the lead up to the match, several people with whom I spoke were somehow convinced that Jamaica was going to come out 3-0 victors; some suggested the Boyz were going to emerge 2-1 victors, a more realistic scenario but the predictors were at a loss to explain to me where the two goals were going to come from.

When the squad was announced a couple weeks ago, I asked Coach Theodore Whitmore how he planned to address Jamaica’s problem of maintaining ball possession, especially in  the attacking third of the field. Against Mexico on February 6, when Jamaica emerged from that encounter with a pleasantly unexpected 0-0 draw, the team spent very little time in that attacking third primarily because they were punting the ball 30 yards or more up-field hoping that our lone forward would win the lottery against five or six defenders, then take them on and then manage to score. Early in the first half they got lucky, but Jobi McAnuff hit the upright and then muffed the subsequent rebound, and in the second Ryan Johnson muscled his way past the defense but kicked the ball straight to the Mexican custodian.

In between Jamaica had very brief forays into the final third before the Mexicans managed to retrieve the ball and mounted their own attack. It was against this background that I asked Coach Whitmore and later that same night on my radio show – Sportsnation Live on Nationwide 90fm – what the coaching staff planned to do about the possession game, especially when it concerned how they attacked their opponent’s goal. Whitmore’s response was more honest but no less disappointing than Montesso’s. He said he shared my concern but they didn’t have the time necessary to make those adjustments. Montesso, in his response, suggested that everyone, including me, wanted the team to play like Barcelona and that that was not possible in  the time the players had together.

I guess Panama must have looked like Barcelona to the world then when they played before 30,000 Jamaicans on Friday night because they played like a well-oiled machine sometimes having the ball for as many as 20 or 25 passes before Jamaica managed to wrest possession away from them. The thing is that when we got possession, three or four passes later the ball was back with the Panamanians, which is what I feel ultimately resulted in their deserved equalizer.

Demar Phillips managed to get possession of the ball after another Panamanian attack was broken up, but instead of his teammates giving him outlets to make a short pass, and the team executing a plan to pass their way out of trouble, everybody stood around as if not knowing what to do. Perhaps feeling cornered near the flag post, Phillips hooked an errant pass back into the field of play (I would have preferred him kicking it down the line and out of play). The pass ended up at a Panamanian’s feet and two or so passes later,the ball was in the back of the Jamaica net, stunning the crowd into silence.

After that it was a matter of survival for Jamaica, who Whitemore admits, was unable to make proper adjustments after the first half substitution of Nyron Noseworthy, who is out for the remainder of the campaign with a torn Achilles tendon.

Had Jamaica had an established pattern of play that the players would have been made familiar with prior to their arrival in Jamaica at which time they would spend a few days practicing, things may have well been different. Several coaches with whom I have spoken in the couple of days since the 1-1 stalemate at the national stadium, agree that it does not seem as if the Jamaican coaching staff have developed a pattern which the players have become familiar with. That results in the uncertainty that is apparent whenever the team has the ball. There is a clear absence of a plan in how they are going to move the ball forward; patience, as well as little movement off the ball that pulls opponents out of position and creates spaces for passes to be made to teammates in advanced positions.

Then when they get into those advanced positions, they have to look for the best opportunities to score. That doesn’t always mean taking the first opportunity that presents itself but maintaining possession, sometimes retreating to midfield and switching the point of attack, always moving and with numbers to spread the defense thus creating openings through which the team can strike at the appropriate time. Not like Barcelona, but like most other good teams across the planet who win more than they lose; like Panama.

This is the only way I see where Jamaica is going to create opportunities to score in open play and perhaps win a few more matches whether we play at home or abroad. Jamaica, although hit by Noseworthy’s departure, is a strong team. Perhaps they are not as deep as other teams but this Boyz team is – on paper – perhaps the strongest ever. But until they can start to play proper football, maintaining possession while advancing the ball and attacking with numbers I suspect that we are going to have many more disappointing days both away and at the office.