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Crucial clash for young Reggae Girlz

Published:Saturday | February 29, 2020 | 12:17 AMDaniel Wheeler/ Gleaner Writer
Jody Brown
Jody Brown

Jamaica’s Under-20 Women’s football head coach Xavier Gilbert made it clear after their massive win 3-1 over Canada Wednesday at the Under-20 Concacaf Women’s Championship: It only gets tougher from here.

The young Reggae Girlz will begin the business end of the tournament when they face Bermuda in their round of 16 clash today at noon inside the Estadio Panamericano in the Dominican Republic. Jamaica advanced to the knockout round of the tournament as Group E winners after starting the tournament with a 4-4 draw against Guatemala in their first game, a game that at one point, they were trailing 3-0 after half an hour. Since then, they have won two games in a row against El Salvador and Canada to advance in the tournament.

With only two spots available for this year’s Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica and Panama in August, Gilbert says that the tests will only get harder for the Girlz as they seek a historic berth into the competition, but he is pleased with the mentality being shown by the junior Girlz. “The further we go, the more difficult it’s going to get. We are going to need to be more disciplined. Our concentration level has to be there,” Gilbert told The Gleaner. “So far, the maturity that the young ladies have shown has been good. And I think we will get better as the tournament progresses.”

Relying on their captain

Jamaica will be relying on their captain Jody Brown to continue her strong goalscoring form after she netted her fourth goal of the tournament in the Canadian win. Gilbert praised the team’s dedication to the tactics which led to the victory over Canada.

“What pleased me the most is how we executed the game plan. Of course, we made some mistakes and we made some adjustments, but they didn’t break us down and we have to give [the girls] credit for that,” he said.

Should the Reggae Girlz prevail today, they will face either host nation Dominican Republic or El Salvador in the quarter-finals. Jamaica are in the bracket which includes Concacaf powers USA and Canada and if Jamaica are to make history, they will need to pull off another massive result to achieve qualification. Having expressed a desire to, once again, step into the roll as a national team youth coach, Gilbert hopes that he can help this group achieve even great things.

“Things are going well so far and we just want to continue to impart what we can to the young ladies to ensure that we can go as far as we can go, our quest to qualify for the World Cup,” he said.