Tony Becca, Contributing Editor
JAMAICA'S FAILURE to qualify for the 2006 World Cup finals continues to be a topic of debate around the country.
In expressing their disappointment a number of fans have fingered Brazilian coach Sebastiao Lazaroni and technical director Carl Brown as the reason for what to them was a poor performance.
According to the fans, neither Lazaroni nor Brown are good coaches, neither one was able to motivate the players, and those were the reasons why the Reggae Boyz faltered - why they gave away late goals, why they failed to win matches they should have won and lost matches they should have drawn, and why they ended up with only two points from three home matches.
SIMOES' GIFT
The consensus, even among those who were not fans of the man, is that had Rene Simoes been the coach, Jamaica would have qualified. According to them, even though Simoes himself, in their opinion, was not a good coach, he had a special gift the gift of getting the best out of players, of getting them to play football until the final whistle.
The reasons for Jamaica's failure goes deeper than that, however so deep that regardless of who he was, it would have been difficult for any coach to have guided the team into the next round much more into the finals.
In order to win, a team needs not only skilled players, not only a good coach, and not only a motivator. In order to win, a team also needs to be a team one in which all the players or the majority of players share the same culture and in which it is all for one and one for all, it also needs committed players.
Unlike the team that won a place in the 1998 finals, the team this time around did not appear to be a team, too may of the players were strangers and it did not appear to be blessed with committed players.
One reason for that may well have been the presence of so many players with no connection to Jamaica but their birth certificates or their fathers birth certificates, and although some may disagree, that may be the reason why, despite their best intentions, they never ever, at least so it appeared, gave the 110 per cent effort that sometimes is the difference between a draw and victory, defeat and a draw.
There are those who may say that the make up of the team was hardly different from that which made it to France, but apart from the fact that there were less "foreign" players and more local-based players in the campaign leading up to France, apart from the fact that there were less players exposed to different coaches and therefore different styles of play and formations, players like Deon Burton and Paul Hall played with a spirit that saw them fighting for every ball from start to finish.
Football is a team game, it is a game in which the more the players know of each other, the better they will play, and for the national team to be strong, for it to be a consistently good team the majority of players should come from those who play in Jamaica and from those who grew up playing in Jamaica and who therefore understands the culture.
To do that, however, emphasis must be placed on selecting more Jamaicans to the Jamaica team. In other words, and as Brown apparently wanted to do, it should be home-grown players first and not second, third or last as appeared to have been the case this time around.
As JFF president Crenston Boxhill said a few days ago, however, for that to happen the general outlook has to change, and hopefully it will change.
The change, however, should not be one in which the best players are not selected to the national team, it should not be one in which a host of young players are selected to the national team because of their potential, and it certainly should not be one in which the national team is hardly any different from the Under-23 team.
In making changes, the JFF should remember that winning is a habit, that fans and sponsors support winners, that the dream of representing one's country is one of the main reasons why people continue to play the game, that by playing the game older players assist in the development of young players, and that apart from friendly engagements, the best, not the youngest, should represent Jamaica at all times.
EMPHASISE DEVELOPMENT
The change should be to place more emphasis on the development of Jamaica's football, it should include using the money spent flying in so many players for matches to assist in the development so that the time will come when Jamaica's football is so strong in the schools and in the clubs that when it comes to selecting the national team there is no need to go hunting abroad for someone whose mother or father, grandmother or grandfather, was born in Jamaica.
Strength is not in the roof. It is in the foundation, and that is where the change must come. When that happens, when the young players are well trained, when there is the kind of competition that will develop their skills and their tactical appreciation of the game, and when they are exposed, they will be ready to represent Jamaica and that is when they should represent Jamaica.
