Girlz looking to ‘chart own destiny’
Senior national women’s football team assistant coach, Andrew Price, said the team’s priority in the upcoming CONCACAF Caribbean women’s qualifiers, which starts on Saturday, is to progress to the CONCACAF final round and give itself a chance of qualifying for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France.
Price believes this is the best squad that has been assembled in a while, and calls on the Jamaican public to support the Girlz in their bid to realise their dream of qualifying.
Jamaica will contest the Caribbean final round with Antigua and Barbuda, Bermuda, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, and Price wants one of the top-three places.
“The most important thing is we are in the top three. Three teams will advance to the final round and that is our primary objective. We are going to take it one game at a time and ensure we qualify for the next round,” he said. “This is the strongest team we have had since we started, everybody’s in. Various people missed various tournaments we had, but now we have been able to assemble the best players available. So I think we will have our strongest team.
“We are playing a five-team tournament, so the squad has to have a lot of depth because we are going to do a lot of rotation, as we want to keep the squad fresh. We are looking at the strongest 11 we can put out for Jamaica, whether they are overseas or local-based. We have a very good balance in the squad for this tournament,” he added.
Price is confident the Girlz will be ready for the opening game against Antigua on Saturday at the National Stadium at 6 p.m., and calls on the public to come out and be the 12th man. Cuba will play Trinidad in the earlier game at 3 p.m. “The girls are ready to go, they are very confident. The CAC games gave them loads of confidence. We know all the teams will be gunning for a top-three place, but we have to put ourselves in a position where we can chart our own destiny, and, hopefully, we can do it with the assistance of the 12th man, the Jamaican crowd.