Williams, left, and Fuller
MIAMI:
JAMAICA'S JOURNEY to World Cup 2006 in Germany begins at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida at 6:30 p.m. today against Haiti.
The game will be the fourth meeting between the countries in eight years and the 30th overall for both teams. In the most recent meetings, Jamaica came away grinning from ear to ear. They won 1-0 in a 1997 friendly international in Haiti, 2-1 at The Office in the 1998 Caribbean Cup and 3-0 at the same venue in a Gold Cup qualifier last year. In total, Jamaica have won 20 games since both teams played their first game in Haiti in 1925, drawing two games and losing on seven occasions.
In their build up this year, the Boyz have played five games; winning two, drawing one and losing two. The games won were against Venezuela (2-1) and Uruguay (2-0), both at the National Stadium. The drawn encounter (2-2) with Honduras) was also at the National Stadium. The Jamacans tasted defeat last week in the Unity Cup games staged in London which saw the Boyz going down 0-2 to Nigeria and 0-1 to Republic of Ireland.
LAST MEETING
Since going down in their last meeting against Jamaica at the National Stadium on March 30 last year, Haiti played 12 games, winning five, drawing four and losing three. Included in the win column is a 2-0 triumph over Trinidad and Tobago 11 months ago. Haiti also managed a 1-1 draw with the United States in March and a 3-3 tie against El Salvador last month.
Jamaica will be without key striker and goalscoring machine Onandi Lowe, who has been left out of the party because of legal problems. Adding to Lowe's absence, the team has been heavily hit by injuries. The defensive line has been compromised due to injuries to Tyrone Marshall and Ian Goodison.
Midfielders Andy Williams and Theodore Whitmore are also nursing injuries. Likewise, Ricardo Fuller is recovering from a knee operation and Craig Ziadie is nursing his quad muscles.
Although the defensive line has been weakened, technical director Carl Brown has ruled out the possibility of Ricardo 'Bibi' Gardner playing in the left back position and seems set to start him in the left midfield role. Although the starting team was not named at press time last night, given Brown's known love for the 4-4-2 formation coupled with injury problems, Jamaica's possible starting line-up should be: Donovan Ricketts in goal, Claude Davis, Damion Stewart, Fabian Davis and Garfield Reid in defence while Gardner, Williams, Micah Hyde and Richard Langley should provide the passes for Fuller and Damani Ralph on the forward line. Earlier this week, Brown expressed concerns about the way Jamaica have started their World Cup campaigns in recent years.
"We are getting into a very crucial game on Saturday. If you look at the history of our World Cup qualification in our 1998 campaign, we played our first game against Suriname, which is not as strong as this Haitian team and we were only able to beat them 1-0.
"In the 2002 campaign we started out in St. Vincent and yet again we were only able to beat them 1-0," added Brown.
Jamaica drew a bye to this stage of the competition while Haiti advanced after beating the Turks and Caicos Islands 7-0 on aggregate. Haiti's coach Fernando Clavijo is predicting a win for his team.
"Everyone is waiting to see Haiti play. We are playing a great team. We respect them but we don't fear them," he said. "We are going to come out and win."
Unlike the Jamaican team that is riddled by injuries, Clavijo said his players are as fit as a fiddle and raring to go.
"We don't have any injury to report. We cannot wait for the start of the game," he said.
