Reggae Girlz turn to Olympic qualification

AFTER QUALIFYING for their second successive FIFA Women’s World Cup on Monday, Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz will go for another piece of history when they face Olympic gold medallists, Canada, in the Concacaf Women’s Championship semifinal today in Mexico at 9 p.m. for a place at the Olympic Games, as well as a place in their first-ever regional championship final.

Jamaica defeated Haiti 4-0 to secure one of the four Concacaf slots for the global showpiece in Australia and New Zealand next year, however, only the two finalists will represent the region at the Olympics, and Donaldson said they will be giving everything to achieve the objective and create more history.

“We want to play some good stuff and leave it all on the field,” Donaldson told a pre-match press conference.

“Canada are the Olympic champions, so we have the Olympic and World champions in the tournament still to battle. But we are here with them (Canada and USA) at this point and that is good. We are still playing for something and we want to give everything on the field and walk away saying that we gave it all,” he said.

INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS

In their two international meetings, Canada battered their Caribbean opponents 9-0 and two years ago enjoyed a comfortable 2-0 result.

Donaldson is expecting the Olympic champions to come at his charges, but said the Reggae Girlz were prepared to fend off the strength of the Canada attack.

“They are going to try and get behind us, so we have to combat that. They might watch a few tapes of us and see something that we might have a weakness in.

“But we will have to match their football and their fitness. They have a very deep roster so we will have to match that. But we have to come out and play football and try to get at them with our strengths,” he declared.

“The mood is good and there is more at stake. That is why we are pushing on to get something more out of this tournament,” he added.

Meanwhile Canadian coach, Beverly Priestman, remains quite wary of the Khadija Shaw-led Jamaican attack.

“The Jamaica we played in 2020 is definitely not the team we are seeing now. Since they came back from that tournament, they have recruited a lot of WSL and English players, who play with top players week in week out. So we will go into the game and respect that.

“They have got attacking threats that we have to take care of. Our backline is world class, hopefully we can cope with them,” she said.

“We expect them to be difficult and compact. But as long as we can take care of the threats up top with ‘Bunny’ Shaw, who is a big threat, we can take a victory from the game,” she said.

livingston.scott@gleanerjm.com