By Anthony Foster, Freelance Writer

Jamaica's Simeon Howell, left, fights for the ball against Costa Rica's Pablo Brenes during their Pre-Olympic soccer match at the Jalisco Stadium on Monday night in Guadalajara City, Mexico. Costa Rica won 3-0. - AP

THE YOUNG Reggae Boyz face a virtually do-or-die situation this evening (local time) when they face kingpins Mexico in their second final round match of CONCACAF Olympic qualifying at the Jalisco Stadium in Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara.

Head coach Peter Cargill, aware of the team's predicament after a 3-0 loss to Costa Rica on Monday night, admitted "It is going to be extremely difficult but we are still positive.

"Hopefully, we can get things together tomorrow and give of a better performance," he told The Gleaner in an telephone interview yesterday.

Mexico comfortably accounted for the final group's other Caribbean team, Trinidad and Tobago, 3-1 that same night and the Central American sides appear near certainties to advance to the semi-final phase.

Only a shock win for Jamaica tonight can realistically keep their hopes of advancing to the Athens Olympics in August alive.

Looking back at Monday's game, Cargill said: "I think the second half was a total mess. We fell apart in the second half, we competed in the first half... it's difficult to say what went wrong.

"I think we lacked the confidence we showed in previous games."

The Mexican conditions were cold, but Cargill said: "I will not make any excuses. We are going to try and play much better."

Cargill seems to know a lot about their opponents.

"We saw them twice, we saw them in Fort Lauderdale and we saw at least a half of the game last night (Monday)," he said.