Young Boyz pip Mexico 1-0 in friendly
Howard Walker, Observer Staff Reporter walker@jamaicaobserver.com
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Jamaica continued their dominance over Mexico with a 1-0 win at the Ferdie Neita Park on Tuesday in a key morale-booster as they continue their preparation for the CONCACAF Under-20 World Cup qualifiers next month.
"I think this will do a lot of good for our confidence. We know that this team is the kingpin of CONCACAF and their programme is superior to us, but we know what we're about and tried to impose ourselves on the game. It's a big morale-booster for us," head coach Donovan Duckie confirmed.
The prolific Dever Orgill scored the decisive goal in the 44th minute after collecting a pass inside the box and gliding past a defender before firing home with his left foot.
It was a good comeback for the young Reggae Boyz after losing 0-1 against Costa Rica on Saturday in an uninspired display. It was the second time these players were getting the better of Mexico, the last time being at the Under-17 level in 2007.
"We expected this. It was a quality team that we were up against and we prepared ourselves well and we knew we had to defend stout heartedly. We put a lot into this game," said Duckie.
"We remembered when we beat them at Under-17 level with Orgill the scorer again. He wanted to do well... and congrats for him."
This was Jamaica's third match in six days after drawing 0-0 with Costa Rica last Thursday before losing 0-1 to the same team on Saturday.
"It was a wonderful performance. I thought we played tactically well. We knew in our minds that we could've won the Costa Rica series, but we wanted to see some players.
Today we wanted to win so we used our best players and built up the team chemistry," added Duckie.
In front of a fair-sized crowd, the young Boyz turned in an improved performance and matched Mexico in every department to earn a deserved victory. Duckie was pleased that the team achieved some of its objectives.
"There were few hitches here and there. I thought defensively, tactically we were very good. Our transition was a little bit off. We need to be quicker in the short spaces and that we can improve on," he noted.
Jamaica will leave for Fort Lauderdale on February 24 where they will play a Florida All School team the following day before engaging Canada's Under-20s on February 27.
They will then return home before leaving for the Final CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying round set for March 6-15 in Trinidad & Tobago (T&T).
Jamaica are drawn in Group A alongside the United States, El Salvador and the winners of the Honduras-St Vincent and the Grenadines play-off. Group B will be contested by hosts T&T, Mexico, Costa Rica and Canada.
The top two teams from both groups will advance to the FIFA World Cup in Egypt in September.
