Fixing our flaws

As the senior women’s national football team prepares to return to competitive action next month, head coach Hubert Busby Jr says that the addition of five England-born débutantes presents an opportunity to strengthen the capabilities of the current player pool, as they look towards November’s FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifiers.

Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz will face Nigeria and world champions the United States in Houston on June 10 and June 13, respectively, in their first pair of games since February 2020 when the COVID-19 resulted in a 15-month hiatus.

While the provisional 31-player squad included several familiar faces from the 2019 Women’s World Cup campaign, as well as the 2020 Olympic qualifying tournament, the group will also feature five England-born players, consisting of defender Vyan Simpson, midfielders Jade Bailey and Drew Spence, forward Shania Hayles and goalkeeper Rebecca Spencer.

Busby Jr says that while those players have been on the radar of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) as potential targets, it was after the Concacaf Olympic qualifying tournament in 2020 when the pursuit began in bringing them into the national team.

“We started speaking to some of these players who, in fairness, we have identified for a couple years. But obviously, with the players we’ve had in our programme and doing an assessment after our Olympics, we needed to sort of address areas in which we probably needed more depth, and that’s obviously what we looked to address after the qualifiers, and hence (the reason) those players were brought in,” Busby told The Gleaner.

PLAYERS IN THE SUPER LEAGUE

With the exception of Simpson, who plays in the FA Women’s Championship with Charlton Athletic, Bailey (Liverpool), Hayles (Aston Villa), Spence (Chelsea) and Spencer (Tottenham) all play in the Women’s Super League, the country’s top-flight division.

Among the most notable of the additions is Spence, who helped Chelsea win back-to-back league titles recently and was a part of their Women’s Champions League run to the final this season.

“For her (Spence) to be held in such high regard by the coaching staff and among world-class players, it says a lot about her, and to have a player like that coming to our environment with so many young up-and-coming players, I think it just bodes well (for us),” Busby Jr said.

While the coach warned that this does not mean that further recruiting from England is to be expected for this cycle, he says that they are committing to finding talent to play for Jamaica, but with the right players, as they prepare for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.

“It’s not necessary looking at where players are from or where they are based, as much as it is what the requirement is,” Busby Jr said. “(But) it’s important we address this (the friendlies) as an opportunity (for the) players because 15 months is an awful long time not to be together.”

When contacted about the status of the players’ documents, JFF General Secretary Dalton Wint said that the process is under way, and while not giving an exact timeline, he added that he is hoping that all will be completed by the time the international friendlies begin.

daniel.wheeler@gleanerjm.com