Hallgrimsson to know Gold Cup path in today’s draw
Published:Friday | April 14, 2023 | 1:19 AM
National senior men’s head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson will know the path he will have to navigate in his first continental tournament with the Reggae Boyz when the Gold Cup draw takes place today at 2 p.m. (Jamaica time) at SoFi Stadium in California.
Jamaica, who qualified for the Gold Cup group stage after finishing second in their Concacaf Nations League group, have been placed into pot 2 along with Panama, Haiti and Guatemala, as the groups will be determined for this year’s tournament.
The Reggae Boyz are coming out of a 2-2 draw with Mexico last month in their final Nations League game campaign, which was not enough to get them through to the semi-finals. However, after that game, Hallgrimsson said that he and the Jamaican fans must exercise patience as the construction of the team that has World Cup qualification aspirations continues.
“We are starting a long journey but we are trying to improve a lot of things, trying to change a lot of things. This will take time. I have to be patient and Jamaica has to be patient,” Hallgrimsson said after the game on March 26.
Hallgrimsson used the month of March to call a number of players for camp, as well as two friendlies against Trinidad and Tobago which were used not only to evaluate talent for that Mexico game but also players that could be a part of the Gold Cup squad, one of the key tournaments for Hallgrimsson in their long-term journey towards the 2026 World Cup in North America.
The top-four teams in the region, United States (USA), Mexico, Costa Rica and Canada, are in pot 1 and have been already seeded into the groups with USA, the reigning champions in Group A, Mexico in Group B, Costa Rica in Group C, and Canada in Group D.
Jamaica have progressed to the quarter-finals of the Gold Cup since 2015, and have made it to two finals, under Winfried Schafer in 2015 and Theodore Whitmore, in 2017. They have also made four semi-finals between 2015 and 2019.