'Women's football in safe hands' - Former nat'l women's keeper praises Reggae Girlz's historic feat

Former national senior women's football team goalkeeper Chantelle McLennon is thrilled that the Reggae Girlz have qualified for next year's FIFA Women World Cup in France.

The Girlz booked their ticket to France by beating Panama in the third-place play-off at the CONCACAF Women's Championship at the Toyota Stadium in Edinburg, Texas. That game turned on a goalkeeper swap by Jamaica's head coach Hue Menzies for the crucial penalty shoot-out. Though Sydney Schneider had saved 29 of the 39 shots on target that came her way in the tournament, Menzies sent in Nicole McClure to face the penalties.

McClure saved two penalties and piloted Jamaica to a 4-2 margin.

Good strategy

"It's a good move. Coaches tend to know their players and certain players respond better under pressure than others," she explained.

Though she sees Schneider's overall performance in the tournament brightly, she added, "That was a good tactical move on behalf of the coach and it paid dividends for the team."

McLennon, who played when Jamaica tried to qualify for the 2004 Olympics, was thrilled by Jamaica's win over Panama on October 17.

"It sends a lot of chills up my spine," she said. "Some parts of it were very emotional for me because there were moments when I was playing where not many people had faith in the Girlz team going that far."

One memory showed how tough things were when McLennon was between the sticks.

"I remember being in Costa Rica," she reminisced, "and we were fed black beans and a lot of Spanish, Mexican, kind of food, and half of the team got sick."

It is her observation that recruiting has strengthened the Reggae Girlz ranks.

"It appears to me also that the recruiting has been done a lot differently in terms of bringing overseas players with Jamaican parentage," McClure said.

Recruiting

"Back in the time when I was playing, 95 per cent of the team would have been from the ISSA schoolgirl programme here in Jamaica, because there was no resources to be flying people from overseas to come and train with us".

"I'm sure that you know from a standpoint of a little girl looking on, thinking about possibilities for herself in terms of college, university, exposure from travelling, and just the passion of the game, that many young girls would start to become more involved in the sport, especially seeing that Jamaica is now accepting the sport for girls now."