By Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport EditorSHUTTING DOWN Brazil's fiery engine room will be key among technical director Carl Brown's plans when his Reggae Boyz tackle the world champions at Leicester City's Walter's Stadium on Sunday.
"Across the middle of the field they have some really strong players and I believe this is where we really have to contain them and not allow them the freedom to play," Brown told The Gleaner in an interview ahead of their departure last night.
These include stars revered globally in Ronaldinho (Barcelona), Gilberto Silva (Arsenal), Emerson (Roma), Juninho Paulista (Middlesborough), Juninho Pernambuco (Lyon), Ze Roberto (Bayern Munich) and fast-rising Kaka, who has been making waves at AC Milan.
To counter their skills, Brown said "We've assembled a strong unit in midfield."
He listed Ricardo Gardner, Whitmore (Theodore), Langley (Richard), Hyde (Micah), Andy Williams and Jamie Lawrence as the Reggae Boyz who could be given that huge task, saying "...it's a blend of skilful and aggressive players who we could select from."
Both teams are using the friendly encounter to prepare for upcoming World Cup qualifying matches and Brown called this their 'biggest game'.
"This is the biggest game that we'll be engaged in," he admitted. "It will be a great motivating factor for the players, just to participate against the world champions and I expect it to bring out the best in our players."
Only last weekend, Brazil's technical director, Carlos Alberto Parreira, declared the same, telling The Gleaner in an interview in Rio de Janeiro that "... they (Jamaica) will play the game of their lives, they will have motivation, they are playing against the five-time world champions".
If only on the basis of that reputation, Brown, whose team will kick-off its qualifiers early next year, expects the match to provide a good gauge of their status.
He said: "It could be a measuring stick. This could be our best test to date and our best way of assessing the team, where we are, and what we need to do from now on leading into the World Cup qualifiers.
"In 1998 our strength going into the qualifiers was the defensive unit. We gave up few goals and not many teams got three goals or more against us," he pointed to the team which earned Jamaica its first World Cup (France '98) finals qualification.
Strange enough, the last time both countries played against each other was in that year. They played twice at the February Gold Cup - finishing goalless in the preliminary round and Brazil winning the third place play-off 1-0 off an injury time goal.
That tournament gave Brazil almost a final opportunity to test its World Cup finals squad.
With their third qualifier just days after, they have again lined up a world-class squad with two-time FIFA Player of the Year, Ronaldo, the Real Madrid scoring sensation and Rivaldo, the out-of-favour Milan striker who will be keen to impress as well as the dribbling Denilson and Parma's Adriano.
Additionally, there will be goalscoring fullback Roberto Carlos, also from Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen's Lucio.
"How we track these players who are capable of moving around the field quickly, how much we can limit them, how we can prevent them from playing the type of football they want to play will be key," assessed Brown who left here with the six local members of the 20-man squad yesterday.
The six are goalkeeping duo Donovan Ricketts and Aaron Lawrence, defenders Gerald Neil, Shane Crawford and Damion Stewart and forward Fabian Taylor.
