Gardner ATTACKING left full-back Ricardo Gardner and fellow defenders Clifton Waugh and Gregory Messam are back among the Boyz.
The three left here yesterday with 12 officials and 18 members of the 20-man squad bound for El Salvador for their last game in the CONCACAF World Cup 2002 semi-final round qualifying competition against the Central Americans tomorrow.
The other two squad members, Tivoli Gardens' Jermaine Johnson and Marco McDonald, were slated to meet the team in Miami, on their return from a CONCACAF Club Championship play-off in Antigua/Barbuda.
After scoring victories in their first four matches, Jamaica secured a spot in the six-team final round from which three will advance to the finals in just under two years. El Salvador are already eliminated.
Jamaica played a fifth game but lost 0-1 to Honduras in Tegucigalpa.
Messam and tough-tackling centre half Waugh, who played among the '98 France World Cup squad, have not seen action with the Boyz for a long time.
Gardner, who was a regular in the national team, has just returned to action following a long lay-off through surgery. He scored a peach of a goal for English Division One side Bolton Wanderers to lift them to victory at the weekend and with the final round of World Cup qualifiers set to take place next year, it is almost a certainty that he will play to ensure he gets every opportunity to work-in with the team ahead of their important upcoming schedule from which the top three will advance to the World Cup finals.
There are two other players in the squad who were sidelined by injuries recently, strikers Walter Boyd and Deon Burton.
Burton, who plays for Premiership club Derby County, has not seen much action lately and the prospects of him playing looms large, owing to the exclusion of form striker Onandi Lowe, who is one of four players serving a one-match suspension for yellow card offences.
The others are sweeper Shavar Thomas, full back Stephen Malcolm and on-form midfielder Andy Williams.
Boyd started in Jamaica's last game against Honduras but missed much of his club's recent games due to an injury.
The forward, who represents British Nationwide Second Division Two team Swansea City, flew into Jamaica at near 2:00a.m. on Monday, along with the other Britain-based stars Burton, Gardner and the Hull City pair, defensive strongman Ian "Pepe" Goodison and Theodore "Tappa" Whitmore, who has been in sparkling form while scoring a number of goals recently.
The five players from European teams take the number of overseas-based players to seven as US-based Wolde Harris and Tyrone Marshall had earlier made the trip home since the end of their season.
Also in the squad are under-20 players, forward Dwayne Richards and midfielder Omar Daley.
The squad is: Linval Dixon (capt.), Walter Boyd, Wolde Harris, Ricardo Gardner, Tyrone Marshall, Omar Daley, Aaron Lawrence, Jermaine Johnson, Deon Burton, Dwayne Richards, Ian Goodison, Theodore Whitmore, Christopher Dawes, Donovan Ricketts, Claude Davis, Gregory Messam, Clifton Waugh, Marco McDonald, Fabian Davis, Fabian Taylor.
Officials: Capt. Horace Burrell, Horace Reid, Davis Watt, Clovis de Oliveira, Dr. Glenton Smith, Jose Camargo, Carl Brown, Peter Cargill, Howard Bell, Glydiston Ananias, Paul Campbell, Rev. Al Miller.
