Whitmore and Jamaica’s football
JUDGING from the performance of the national football team, Jamaica’s chance of getting to another World Cup Finals will not materialise before 2026 unless Fifa decides to start hosting the tournament every two years as is being proposed — for the national team’s performance so far is nothing short of dismal.
Last week, a few key players, some based in the United Kingdom pulled out of the squad for the match against the United States last Thursday, today against Canada, and later in the week against Honduras. Why is that? Well, several reasons have been put forward, among them logistical challenges, some of which I do not accept.
The team has not been performing well. There are too many technical and tactical flaws and faults. Many of them fall flush in the lap of the National Coach Theodore Whitmore, who has been found wanting. It appears that the former outstanding Jamaica player cannot shift to a more powerful gear.
The group of players that has been assembled over the last three years remains among the best that I have seen take the field for Jamaica. But something is woefully lacking from a coaching perspective. To compound the matter, Whitmore got an assistant coach in the form of Paul Hall, whom he partnered as a member of the Jamaica aggregation in the island’s sole appearance at the 1998 World Cup in France. Hall’s coaching experience is limited...nothing speak of, so it was a silly move for the Jamaica Football Federation to have sanctioned such a thing. Maybe he is serving as team interpreter.
When you look at the many United Kingdom-based players who form the brunt of Jamaica squad, they are coached by people of proven track records. The problem is that when they arrive in Jamaica they are exposed to a lower standard of coaching that can frustrate them. That is, I believe, where one of the problems lies.
There are too, members of that same squad who fly all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to warm the bench. I have always held the view that if you take a player from so far, he ought to be good enough to make the starting XI, or be a decent substitute. Many do not get the opportunity to serve as either. Why then pay all that money to bring a man so far to Jamaica, and then go all over the place without playing him? It does not make sense.
So the football needs a lot of straightening out. The administrators are squeezing the sport’s neck, and the coaching staff does not know how to use the players at their disposal. I would love to be pleasantly surprised with news that Jamaica will be on that flight to Qatar for next year’s finals, but I do not see it happening.