Fringe players look to impress Hallgrimsson

There is a big incentive for Jamaica’s fringe players to do well in today’s international friendly against Guatemala at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey, United States. Head coach Heimir Halgrimsson says there is a spot open in the Reggae Boyz team for their Concacaf Gold Cup qualification tie against Canada next week and outstanding players in today’s match could improve their chances of becoming first team regulars. Kickoff time is 7 p.m.

The Reggae Boyz squad for today’s match includes mainly players, local and United States-based, who are not regular starters on the first team and they will be looking to impress Hallgrimsson. Although the Icelandic coach insists the time they have with the players will be inadequate to fully assess each player, he declared that they will have other opportunities in January and February.

“We do not want to talk about the squad for Canada until Sunday. We would like to see and have options for some players. If somebody can do a good game, we have an open spot for the Canada game,” Hallgrimsson said.

He noted that playing outside the FIFA window is not ideal for the players, as there is not enough time to inform and prepare them sufficiently and as a result some players will be invited to a future camp.

“This is not the best time for them to show, so it’s a little bit unfair to those players at this moment. They only have two training sessions and the minutes we will have during the game. But we rather do it (play friendly against Guatemala) and we will give them another chance in January when we have more time with them, then we can get to know them better than we can for these three days together.

“So from our planning, we want to use January and February for these kind of games. This (Guatemala) game was decided, so we will try to do the best we can to give the players as good a camp as possible to show what they can do and show us how good they are. So I am looking to see how they perform to see what they can give,” he commented.

Meanwhile, with 13 players from the Guatemalan Gold Cup squad that lost 1-0 to Jamaica in the quarterfinals, Hallgrimsson anticipates a competitive game from the Central Americans.

However, despite the limited experience in the Jamaica squad, he expects the more experienced ones to lead from the front.

“We (will) go for the win. That should be the first and ultimate goal of the national team. They (Guatemala) have a squad of 13 players from the Gold Cup, their coach (Luis) Tena came in on a similar time as us and has played 22 matches since.

“They have more understanding in their squad because they have played together many times, so the individual and tactical understanding is probably much higher in Guatemala. They were the opponents that impressed us the most in the Gold Cup, really enthusiastic, hardworking players, fast and direct. That is going to be an advantage to them that we haven’t been together for as long as they have.

“These (Jamaican) players are touching base on what we want to do tactical wise and it’s a lot of information in a short period of time. But we also want to see what they can deliver tactically in the areas we want. But we want to do good, play well and win the game,” Hallgrimsson said.

He added that he expected players like Demario Phillips, Romario Williams, Richard King, Javain Brown and Jahmali Waite who have been in squads before to be the leaders on the pitch.

livingston.scott@gleanerjm.com