Young Boyz 'Hi-Jacked'?
Jamaica Observer
Monday, August 21, 2006
Boxhill. we have to look at the bigger picture
Jamaica's chances of retaining their Caribbean Youth Cup (Under-17) suddenly became remote yesterday after an off-the-field intervention of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) late Saturday.
According to a release from the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) yesterday, CFU president Austin 'Jack' Warner, on the advice of senior vice-president Lisle Austin, and with the approval the CFU's emergency committee, revised the format of the competition in order to determine the two Caribbean teams that will go through to the CONCACAF final qualifying round for the FIFA World Under-17 Championship.
The CFU Youth Cup is also being used as qualification for the World Cup.
With the competition now at the quarter-final stage and Jamaica being host of one leg of that CONCACAF qualification competition, the nation has been placed in Group B with the three non-Caribbean (guest teams) group winners - Canada, Mexico and Panama - while the other qualifiers, Barbados, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname have been placed in Group A to participate in a league playoff.
From this playoff, the first and second-placed teams will subsequently qualify for the CONCACAF final round of the competition.
The first-placed teams of each group will play for the Caribbean Youth Championship, while the second-placed teams of each group will play for the third and fourth places.
Mexico are the reigning world champions at the Under-17 level, Canada are CONCACAF powers at the youth level, while Panama represent the traditional Central American quality, leaving the Caribbean champions with a mountain to climb, as opposed to the other Caribbean countries in Group A, which will be given a much easier passage to the final and third place playoff.
Under the original format, the Young Reggae Boyz, winners of Group F after three unbeaten games, were set to challenge preliminary round Group C winners Barbados tomorrow.
But under this new format, they were suddenly asked to travel to Tobago yesterday, to face Canada today in quarter-final action.
JFF boss Crenston Boxhill was not overly amused by this sudden change, but he preferred to put a philosophical spin on it.
"Based on us being the only Caribbean team in this group, of course it makes it more difficult to retain our title as Caribbean champions, but having said that, we have to look at the bigger picture," he said.
"Our aim all along was to qualify for the FIFA World Cup in South Korea in 2007 and to do so these are some of the teams that we will have to come up against and beat in order to be successful.
"Earlier this year we played the USA twice and with these high quality games, it will enhance our chances of the ultimate goal," he added.
The Observer learnt that Raymond Grant, the head of delegation of the David Hunt-coached team, was made aware of the changes early yesterday, after the team's management had scouted Barbados and scheduled an off-day for the players, in anticipation of a game against the land of the flying fish tomorrow.
Jamaica mauled Dominica 8-0 Saturday to complete their first round fixture.
The group winners will meet in the final on August 27, while the second-placed teams meet in the third place match on the same day.
Jamaica won the Championship last year after finishing third, behind two guest teams.
At the Ato Boldon Stadium on Saturday, Jamaica were led by a Romario Campbell hat-trick.
The Caribbean champions opened the scoring in the third minute through Andre Beckford, and Campbell struck in the 17th to take them into half-time with a 2-0 lead.
Jamaica then burst the floodgates with six goals in a 16-minute span.
Campbell converted his second in the 51st minute, and John Ross Doyle and Akeem Brown got into the act with goals in the 54th and 63rd minutes, respectively.
Campbell completed his hat-trick in the 67th minute.
