Stars
Soccer Review will be starting Jamaica Football
as the third issue of its national magazine project.
Trinidad and Tobago
Football and Canada Soccer were the
first two issues of the national magazine project.
The Jamaica
Footballmagazine is called "Cool Runnings"
and it covers
the history of football in Jamaica including the
country's 1998
World Cup debut in France.
Jamaica is currently the undisputed King of Caribbean Football, and
the Reggae Boyz will be going in
search of a spot at the 2014 FIFA World
Cup in Brazil in the upcoming World Cup
qualifiers.
Jamaica won the Digicel
Caribbean
Championship in back to back tournaments (2008
and 2010) and is a force to be reckoned with in
the CONCACAF region.
Football is
Jamaica's number one sport and support for the
Reggae Boyz is tremendous. The 12th man
advantage was the primary reason Jamaica U-17 qualified for the 2011
FIFA World
Cup.
The Young
Reggae Boyz qualified for the U-17 World Cup in
Mexico, and ended
Jamaica's drought dating back to 1999 when the
country made its debut appearance.
The
Reggae Boyz
reached the quarter finals of the 2011 Gold Cup
after going undefeated in group play with three wins, no
losses and no draws.
One of Jamaica's
major wins at the Gold Cup was Honduras, a team
which participated at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in
South Africa. All things considered, Jamaica is
on track to advance to the final round in the
upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
The Reggae Boyz will have to maintain the form
that they displayed
at the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup while taking their
game to another level.
Jamaica
has untapped some young talent from the 2011 CONCACAF
U-17 W-C qualifiers in Montego Bay, and while
there is still lots of room for improvement, Jamaica
has been almost invincible at home at the office
in Kingston, where the crowd
makes life extremely difficult for opposing
teams to gain a result.
Stay Tuned!
2011 Gold Cup Review
By Michael Lewis
(concacaf.com)
WASHINGTON -- Jamaica's exit from the Gold Cup
was forgettable: a 2-0 loss to the United States
in which it was outshot 18-8 and finished with
10 men. Yet, Reggae Boyz coach Theodore Whitmore
felt his team had nothing to be ashamed of in
the tournament.
The Jamaicans won all three of their
opening-round games and outscored the opposition
7-0, the only team not to concede a goal.
Sunday's loss, however, was as one-side for the
Americans as Jamaicans were in the group stage.
"Sometimes it can be nerves. Sometimes it can be
the opposition," Whitmore told the Jamaica
Observer. "I think some of our better players
never played [Sunday], but I think overall it
was a good performance from the national team,
and with the players that we had in this
tournament, the future looks bright and I must
congratulate the players again for the hard work
throughout this tournament."
There is much to be optimistic about. More and
more Jamaican players are competing abroad. Of
the 14 Jamaicans who can play in Major League
Soccer, seven were on the Gold Cup team with
European opportunities probably developing over
the coming months.
"The fact is that doors are being opened now for
our players to go abroad to ply their trade,
which is good," assistant coach Warren Barrett
told CONCACAF.com "We have a number of players
who play here in the U.S. We have a number of
players in Europe.
"So that has really broadened their horizons for
the national team, and also the professional
environment and attitude that they find
themselves in. Week in and week out, they play
in very strong, competitive leagues, so at the
end of the day, that enhances our national
team."
The Jamaicans are trying to emulate the success
of the Reggae Boyz of 1998, who qualified the
country for its first World Cup in France. They
have stumbled several times since, but many
observers felt that this version is the
Caribbean side's most talented and disciplined
team.
"I can say the ones in the past were way more
talented than us right now," said defender
Shavar Thomas, who plays with Sporting Kansas
City (MLS). "But we have a thing that we've been
doing since 2009, where everyone focuses as a
team. This is a team atmosphere and everybody
works for the team."
The Jamaicans' focus has changed as well.
"We have professional guys who play overseas at
big clubs, but a lot of times when they got
here, the focus was not the same as they would
do at their clubs," Thomas said. "And that's a
major difference [this year]. Since the last
Gold Cup in 2009, we said, 'We have too much
talent not to advance.' And we said that we have
to do this as a team, as a group. And that's
what's been working so far."
Ranked 55th in the monthly FIFA World Rankings
-- fourth in CONCACAF behind the United States,
Mexico and Honduras, the Jamaicans won't have to
start its World Cup qualifying run for Brazil
until the semifinal round along with the United
States, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and Cuba.
That will allow Whitmore and his staff to make
some long-range plans.
"When we return home we will sit and discus
where we go from here because for now we just
have to concentrate on some practice games and
focus on the 2014 campaign," he told the
Observer. "We have some areas in the team that
we need to start looking at to get it more
competitive, so we have a lot of work to do."
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Stars
Soccer Review will be starting Jamaica Football
as the third issue of its national magazine project. 
Football is
Jamaica's number one sport and support for the
Reggae Boyz is tremendous. The 12th man
advantage was the primary reason Jamaica U-17 qualified for the 2011
FIFA World
Cup.
One of Jamaica's
major wins at the Gold Cup was Honduras, a team
which participated at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in
South Africa. All things considered, Jamaica is
on track to advance to the final round in the
upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
The Jamaicans won all three of their
opening-round games and outscored the opposition
7-0, the only team not to concede a goal.
Sunday's loss, however, was as one-side for the
Americans as Jamaicans were in the group stage.
So that has really broadened their horizons for
the national team, and also the professional
environment and attitude that they find
themselves in. Week in and week out, they play
in very strong, competitive leagues, so at the
end of the day, that enhances our national
team."
Ranked 55th in the monthly FIFA World Rankings
-- fourth in CONCACAF behind the United States,
Mexico and Honduras, the Jamaicans won't have to
start its World Cup qualifying run for Brazil
until the semifinal round along with the United
States, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and Cuba.
