DESPITE COMMENDABLE work done by the new Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) administration since taking office, the problem of the Reggae Boyz' lowly ranking on the international stage continues to be a sore point for fans and players alike.
A little more than a year ago, then national technical director Velibor Milutinovic made the bold proclamation that he wasn't concerned with the international rankings.
Well, one year later, with players like national goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts refused new work permits based on the same issue and a few who would have been able to get contracts in English teams forced to stay at home, it seems Miluti-novic wasn't quite right, was he?
In fairness to Milutinovic
However, before we officially ban the name of the Serbian from our local football vocabularies, let us consider a few things. To be fair to Milutinovic, who probably expected an experimentation period to view local talent, that period never came before he was sacked.
He had probably calculated that rankings could be made up using a far more experienced available overseas-based team but, due to a lack of friendly internationals, that dream was never realised. Let us also bear in mind that the results weren't all bad as that experimentation period led to a greatly improved Demar Phillips, who should be heading to the English Premier League next season with Stoke City and is a mainstay of the national squad.
The problem for Jamaica is that one year later, the talent search continues under new coach Rene Simoes and he has, in some respects, found himself in a similar position. The Brazilian came under harsh criticism after Jamaica's most recent friendly international against Trinidad and Tobago, which saw the Soca Warriors come from two goals down to level a game the Reggae Boyz were firmly in control of.
Inexperience
Simoes' crime was to introduce several local-based players at halftime. Of course, in the name of maintaining a capable and expe-rienced local squad, they failed miserably.
That brings us to the problem. Any sort of serious development involving inexperienced local-based players will involve them having to play games. In many of those instances, the results won't always be the best and, therefore, the rankings will not improve.
With Jamaica currently rankedat 105 in the world - an all-time low - it will also be next to impossible to get quality friendly internationals.
We always come back to the issue of nurturing local talent versus competing with the best possible team available. Doubtless, the recent tour of England and the United States by the technical director - which saw him discover more than 40 players capable of representing Jamaica - will no doubt bring this issue back to the fore. With each of these players introduced to the squad - who has been exposed to a higher level of competition - it is likely that there will be one less local player included in the final count.
