Snak

Hincha de Central balea al de Newell´s

ROSARIO -- Un hincha de Newell`s fue baleado por otro de Central, quien fue arrestado en el Parque de la Independencia, tras una discusión en la que un grupo de simpatizantes rojinegros hostigara al agresor por llevar la camiseta canalla, según fuentes policiales.

El hincha de Rosario Central, un hombre de 32 años identificado por su nombre de pila como Horacio, quedó detenido en la seccional quinta, acusado de presunto intento de homicidio.

El joven de Newell`s, que recibió un disparo en el hombro izquierdo, se recupera y está fuera de peligro en un sanatorio privado de Rosario.

El episodio ocurrió alrededor de las 16, en avenida Pellegrini a la altura del Palomar, en el Parque de la Independencia, donde está ubicada la cancha de Newell`s.

Fuentes policiales dijeron a Télam que según los primeros testimonios recogidos, el hincha de Central fue increpado por los de Newell`s, por lo que extrajo un arma de su cintura y disparó.

Como consecuencia de los disparos un joven de 18 años, cuya identidad no trascendió, fue alcanzado por una bala en su hombro izquierdo y fue internado en el sanatorio Delta de Rosario, donde se repone fuera de peligro, confirmaron fuentes médicas.

El atacante fue detenido a pocas cuadras del lugar por la policía motorizada que patrullaba el Parque de la Independencia, luego de que los hinchas de Newell`s denunciaran lo sucedido, y se le secuestró un revolver calibre 32 marca Rubi entre sus ropas.

El detenido declaró en la seccional policial que fue agredido por los hinchas de Newell`s y, al encontrarse en inferioridad numérica, decidió repelerlos con su arma, según la investigación.

Gallego duda entre Caicedo o Farías

BUENOS AIRES -- El delantero de Independiente, Ernesto Farías, brilló este jueves al marcar tres goles en la práctica de fútbol y hace dudar al entrenador, Américo Gallego, que evaluaría incluirlo como titular en lugar del colombiano Juan Caicedo para recibir el domingo a Boca.

Farías fue la gran figura del ensayo que el equipo de Avellaneda realizó en el predio Santo Domingo de Villa Domínico, al anotar 2 goles para el equipo suplente y luego otro cuando reemplazó a Caicedo en el conjunto titular.

Pese a que la idea de Gallego es repetir el equipo que igualó sin goles frente a Quilmes, el rendimiento de Farías en la práctica lo hace dudar sobre si continuar apostando por el colombiano, que tampoco pudo convertir, o bien darle nuevamente una chance al ex delantero de Estudiantes de La Plata y River.

La otra duda en Gallego está en la defensa, ya que Eduardo Tuzzio se retiró con una pequeña molestia y su lugar lo ocupó Julian Velázquez, aunque el experimentado defensor llegaría en condiciones y marcaría el sector derecho.

De esta manera, el posible equipo para recibir el domingo a Boca, desde las 14.15, formaría con: Diego Rodríguez; Tuzzio o Velázquez, Cristian Tula, Claudio Morel Rodríguez, Federico Mancuello; Hernán Fredes, Fabián Vargas, Leonel Miranda; Daniel Montenegro; Luciano Leguizamón y Caicedo o Farías.

El presidente del club, Javier Cantero, presenció la práctica y charló con varios futbolistas, alguno de los cuales deben resolver su continuidad o no en el club, ya que sus contratos vencen en junio.

@ FF17

Nedenstående er skrevet lige før Venezuela kampen, han har dog et par valide punkter i forbindelse med holdudtagelse, og de argentinske svagheder...

Bring Back Maradona

Svensson?! Svensson?! Can you tell me who the hell Svensson is, where he plays?!

- H. Crespo

The cat is bored. No, she’s not. She doesn’t even have a sense of time. She can be nervous or frisky but bored she cannot be. You are bored. No, my dear, you are bored. I am boring, you are bored. You see? The cat may be boring, but only if you deliberately avoid finding joy in the miracle of her confused dilly-dallying. Now I am bored. Yes. You are boring. Yes, wanna make out?

Ah that ser y estar difference, rendered in English as internal -ed and external -ing. What a world eh. Nonetheless, this is getting fookin boring. We miss Maradona. This is getting boring. Another bloody victory. Another night, another one-two-three of cameos in the box: oh Pipita it’s your turn, now you Kun, now you Messi, go on, oh drag it back you devil and smack it round the keeper. Tra-la-la. Beat Chile in Santiago, beat Uruguay, beat Sweden, knocking in three goals in twenty minutes. And tonight, when Argentina play Venezuela at home, it will be in front of a sold-out Monumental, a place where even River win these days. It’s one big bag-o’-dicks love-in. What the hell is a cranky, supposedly provocative blog meant to write about? Full backs? Transitions? Gago? Maybe we could talk about what a jerk John Carlin is; or speculate on why Messi’s newborn child has such ginormous hands.. We’re bored. We miss Maradona.

Even off the pitch everything is rosier than a kitten’s tongue on free cream day at The Big, Comfy Pillow Factory. According to an article on canchallena, unlike previous management teams, there are now strict restrictions on the access of AFA dudes, club presidents and other entitled-feeling moneymen to the players and management. Lines have been drawn, there is a schedule. Sabella is tough but fair, for he recognises the importance of having family around, given how few days the players have in the country. Moreover, as long as these guys are in charge, the AFA’s coffers will not come ahead of the interests of the national team: first comes qualification for the World Cup, only then will Sabella contemplate lucrative friendlies or outings with B-teams to places like Puerto Rico. “I understand business and I will do everything I can to enhance the brand behind the national team, but only as long as it does not interfere with the make-up of the squad or team performance,” Sabella reportedly told don Julio Grondona. The old man must be tired; he’s even going to retire in a while, so much does he miss el Diego.

Love of Messi is, in Olé’s words, “unanimous” at this point, and there is unanimity in terms of people’s opinion of the team – awesome up front, a bit weak at the back, but hey, did you not see who’s up front? Sabella himself has candidly expressed the same thing; he’s not even brazenly claiming there is a balance that will come to the fore with a few more games – and everyone’s fine with that. Unanimous as the night.

Nor are there any of the paddyish murmurings about who should be included in the squad. Of course Argentina’s surplus of very talented players means some must be left out, yet Sabella’s choices, if not frothingly Trappist, can be a little perplexing. Maradona was rightly Tombstoned for his selection policy in the World Cup qualifiers. Some of the players Diego called up he would then treat like embarrassing mementos of late-night tv shopping sprees. The final count was 108 in about half a qualifying campaign and a few friendlies. However, we are concerned that there are also too many token gestures when Sabella names his squads. Although he’s characterised as being staid and serious, some names just come and go with little or no game time, just as with Maradona; or they go from the first eleven to not even being called-up, without any tales of guitars or Ra tunes. At times Sabella’s lists reflect a hipsterish desire for notoriety, validation for being the biggest football freak around. He knows he’s the only guy at the party with a vinyl of Phil Collins singing the Lion King soundtrack in Taiwanese, and he’s loving it.

“Yeah, man,” he told pegamequemegusta over a few rollies, “I know you like Pastore and Lamela but they’re so obvious. I’ve been tripping out with spider monkeys for the last two weeks with my friends and it totally changed my perspective on things. José Basanta’s been doing things at Monterrey that make Jimi’s exploits at the similar-sounding-but-altogether-different-Monterrey seem just darn fanciful.”

Further questions regarding the selection criteria for those players called up from the Argentine league, which left out arguably the three most skilful players – namely, Ignacio Scocco (27), Luciano Vietto (19), el burrito Martinez (27) – while including two men who under no circumstances will be at the World Cup - Leo Ponzio (31) and Maxi Rodriguez (32) – were brushed away like yesterday’s Plimsolls.

There are questions to be asked, however. While 2012 was enjoyable with its 4-0 (Ecu), 3-1 (Par) and 3-0 (Uru) home wins, along with a delightful 2-1 away victory in Chile, it ultimately seems pointless to continue playing a 4-2-4. It is highly improbable that such a narrow, weak team could go any further in a World Cup than they did in the last two. They would be found out. Hell, they almost were away to Chile and Peru (1-1) in just the last six months, where it was truly miraculous that the high-pressuring home teams did not run in several more goals before Argentina got back in the game. In both matches the home teams pressed Argentina high up the pitch, didn’t let them get into any rhythm and then killed them down the wings, leaving their topsy-turvy centrebacks munching air like goggle-eyed hungry hungry hippos. The formula for beating them is already clear; to work it just needs a team with a decent defence and/or an inspired goalkeeper.

That the management team has not been able to resolve the problems in defence is no reason to just hope the attack will always get the team out of a hole. Maradona was accused of tactical naivety for his ‘broken’ team, with the four forwards and the four centrebacks, but at least he recognised the need for some kind of a wall behind that attack, no matter how crude. Sabella’s formation is more extreme than Maradona’s 4-3-3, as the latter’s system required Di María to help out in defence (in the end he contributed nothing in either defence or attack, and was the only player to publicly criticise Maradona, who stuck by him when he was awful). Sabella’s team includes more mobile full-backs, and is still considered more coherent.

Furthermore, Tevez’ inclusion in Maradona’s team precipitated no end of speculation regarding macho rituals of pueblo-enthralling fist-bumping, proletarian nepotism and Messi-bothering. Messi and Tevez don’t get on; Tevez demanded he be in the team, and Maradona was too crazee to say no; Tevez being on the team was the real cause of their collapse, etc. If things don’t work out this time, however, you can be sure that there will be no such rush to make similar claims about the man in the ‘Tevez role’, Sergio Agüero. El Kun is much more loveable, you see, more happy-go-lucky, less acid, less funny, less interesting than Carlitos. This means he projects a much more consistent image. Of course, he’s also great friends with Messi, and the extent to which Messi is calling the shots is The Question Sabella must answer.

It is pretty well-known that Messi likes not only to play in the middle but also to have Di María, Agüero and Higuaín all on together. We’ve seen it works to some extent, but if the team is set up to satisfy Messi’s whims, to make Messi happy and just hope for the best, then why all this pretence of sober management and meticulous planning?

Sabella in that case becomes a tour manager, a logistics man with free rein to pick weird and wild subs from far-flung leagues like Mexico and the Ukraine just as long as they don’t interfere with the real business, which is kowtowing to Messi. In that case, you may as well bring back Maradona.

The part of that theory that fails to convince even us, however, is that pegamequemegusta suspects all this we-must-please-Messi stuff is more a case of projection than a reality. It suggests Messi is really an ogre hidden behind layers and layers of fake blandness and unflattering ads. More likely is that the need to Please Messi is a sycophantic reaction to the lack of an articulated vision for the team and a lack of will to bring it about; a lack of control.

A vaguely similar but certainly recent example of this, although it feels a tad cheap, is the power vacuum at Barcelona following Tito Villanova’s illness. Of course Messi and Barca turned things around in remarkable style against Milan, but perhaps it was a case of pride fuckin with them.

Similarly, when Argentina lost for the first time away to Venezuela in late 2011 and then drew at home to Bolivia, they were at a rather low ebb. Away to Venezuela Sabella had tried a new formation (5-3-2/3-5-2) that sought to shore up the defence and create a solid platform for the attack. It didn’t work that one night and was abandoned. Soon after, again losing away, this time to Colombia, it was the arrival of el Kun off the bench and all-out-attack that rescued the tie and changed the team’s fortunes, leading to the run we mentioned above.

It seems Sabella lost his nerve and from then on was only too happy to chime in with the Make Messi Happy Make Everyone Happy buzz. Perhaps a real manager, though, would make Messi happy without acting as if he’s a child that needs to be pleased; perhaps a real manager would think up a way to get the whole team working and so, in turn, make Messi and everyone else happy. Perhaps a real manager would come up with a way to beat Germany. Otherwise you may as well bring back Maradona.

Tonight against Venezuela at home could offer us a glimpse of the cunning Football Sabella we’ve been told exists. With Di María suspended and Agüero injured, he has decided to change shape to a 4-3-3. Lavezzi will replace el Kun up front but Santos’ number 10, Walter Montillo, will add an extra body to midfield. So far the real star of Sabella’s time in charge has been Gago, who has been both a tackling midfielder and arguably the finest playmaker. With Montillo on the pitch, Gago will no longer be almost solely responsible for getting moves going and the forwards should receive just as much service as they do now. If it doesn’t work, though, pegamequemegusta wonders whether Sabella will have the nerve to stick with it or just revert to his super-attacking version of Maradona’s formation. For in that case, you may as well etc.

Mexico game is World Cup key - Burrell

President of the Jamaica Football Federation Captain Horace Burrell has underlined the importance of Jamaica´s next CONCACAF Final Round FIFA World Cup qualifier against Mexico at the National Stadium, as two teams desperate for points set to do battle on June 4.

A disappointed Burrell, who watched as Jamaica suffered a 0-2 loss to Costa Rica at the Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica on Tuesday night, believes there is much work to be done if Jamaica is to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and that the next game in what is a very tight group, will play a part in the team´s ambitions.

"Everyone can see that some of our players are just not having their best game. Still, I´m confident that we have the quality, and come June 4 when we play Mexico, we should get it right," Burrell said after the Costa Rica match.

The loss plunged Jamaica to the bottom of the six-nation round-robin play-offs on two points. Yet, they are within a win of the leading team, as Panama top the standings on five points, while the United States, Honduras and Costa Rica are next on four, then Mexico, on three. All the teams have played three matches.

"What this shows is that it´s a very tight group because Mexico, the traditional winners, would have been without any question at this stage on nine points. They are only on three points from three games; this is unprecedented for Mexico at this stage and, therefore, it just goes to show how competitive the group is and once the group is this competitive, you just have to keep your focus and keep going," Burrell reasoned.

With Jamaica and Mexico occupying the bottom positions, Burrell says their upcoming clash will be "massive".

Mexico nervous

"That game is going to be massive because we´re at home, Mexico has not been able to dominate us, especially in The Office, and definitely at this time they´re a nervous team because they´ve already played two home games and gotten two out of six points, so that makes it for Mexico very troubling," the JFF president argued.

"It´s troubling for us too, but for Mexico, the kingpins, they would be more concerned at this time. So I expect a huge game come June 4 and I expect us to be very ready for that in light of the fact that we´ll be in a camp before that, in The Bahamas, and we´ll be going up against Tottenham Hotspurs, so I´m still feeling positive about our chances.

"One has to remember that it is not an easy achievement qualifying for a World Cup Final and you´re going to have these kinks. We still have seven games to go, I say again, seven games to go and I am not daunted," Burrell remarked.

"World Cup qualification is not for the faint-hearted; you have to be courageous, you´ve to be strong, you´ve to be positive and that´s how we are now; we´re still in it, we just hit a bump in the road, but we will get past this, and come June 4 it should be a much different ball game in terms of our performance."

IS IT THE LACK OF CHEMISTRY OR THE LACK OF COACHING?

Three days before Jamaica’s World Cup Qualifying game against Panama at the National Stadium, some of the UK-based Reggae Boyz were at Mandela Park doing meet and greets with a gathering of football fans and members of the media. The event was put on by Coca Cola. Television Jamaica’s Morning Time host Neville Bell conducted interviews with the Boyz – Lloyd Doyley, Marvin Elliott, Theo Robinson, Rudolph Austin, and Jermaine ‘Teddy’ Johnson – and the crowd was happy to see them.

Konshens provided the musical entertainment and the energy was high. Tamara Ward, Coca Cola’s Country Manager, explained to me then that the event and others like it to come, were planned to get Jamaica to connect with the players so that together they could build a vibe as Jamaica tried to make it to only their second World Cup in Brazil next year. Ward said they wanted to create the kind of energy around the Boyz similar to that which the country experienced during the Road to France campaign in 1997. After two lacklustre performances; a 1-1 draw here at home against Panama on March 22 and an even worse performance in losing to Costa Rica in Costa Rica on March 26, getting John Public to connect with these Reggae Boyz might just become a harder sell.

Against Costa Rica on Tuesday night, the Jamaican team looked ordinary but near the end of the game, just before they gave up a second goal to the home team, the Boyz actually looked like the team that people expected them to be. For a very brief period, they attacked with numbers and created a few good scoring opportunities. They were missed opportunities, like two clear cut ones from Jermaine Beckford and Luton Shelton respectively in the first half, that Jamaica would come to rue.

The question then on everyone’s minds is, “What is wrong with the Reggae Boyz?’ Many people close to the 2013 version of the Reggae Boyz insist that this team possesses much better talent than the ’98 campaigners. Warren Barrett, the goalkeeper from ’98 and who is now the goal-keeping coach, agrees that there is now better talent but the chemistry in ’98 was much better. Could that be the bug-bear of this team that has promised so much but has so far delivered so little in this final round of qualifying?

On that morning that the players were in Half-Way Tree, Bell, who besides his skills as an affable and talented broadcaster is also the hugely successful coach of St. George’s College’s all-conquering Manning Cup team, reveals that the pool of players selected for the campaign is perhaps the most talented ever to represent Jamaica but he presented an interesting caveat. “Whitmore now needs to be careful,” he said. “Because he needs now not to necessarily select the best players for the team but the right players.”

After three rounds of matches, it seems as if Bell is onto something. Against Mexico the team delivered a historic performance, stealing a point at the Azteca on February 6. During that match they demonstrated great discipline and suffered a bit of mixed fortune but came away with a much-needed point. Since that time however, chemistry seems to be absent. The players seemed lost against Panama, giving up possession after every three or four passes and never looked threatening until Marvin Elliot scored from a corner in what many believe was against the run of play. Panama dominated play after that and got a deserved equalizer.

Against Costa Rica, the team never seemed capable of beating the home team that looked very beatable. In fact, I would venture to say that had this Costa Rican team been a little less fortunate playing before their home crowd estimated at about 35,000, they could have gone 1-0 down very early to Jamaica had Beckford not muffed a very good chance after being released by Luton Shelton on the left side of the box early in the first half. Shelton also muffed an easy chance later on in the half.

For the most part the team looked flat. They seemed disjointed and they kept giving the ball away, especially in the defensive third of the field and was what caused both goals that they eventually conceded. The non-cohesive play could be a factor of chemistry but I do believe that there is a glaring weakness in the coaching as well. The team’s play I feel is a reflection of weak coaching as even without chemistry, these professional players don’t seem to be playing to a clearly defined plan. We don’t see them shutting down the dangerous opposing players, we don’t seem them playing with an understanding of what their respective roles are. We could also be using the incorrect formation in both attack and defense. It’s kind of like putting kids in a classroom to take a test that they were never prepared for.

Then there is the logic or the lack thereof. Jermaine Beckford had barely played before he was named starter in the Panama match. If you recall he was called up for the Mexico match in February and got injured immediately after and did not play. He only recently recovered and had not played much. So starting him made little sense. Starting him again on Tuesday night made even lesser sense. Why not start with Robinson, who had a decent game against Panama and Jermaine Johnson who also played well in the 12 or so minutes he had against Panama. He had an immediate impact against Costa Rica once he was brought on in the second half. Imagine what he might have done had he been allowed to start?

In the match against Panama, the sudden loss of Nyron Nosworthy negatively impacted the team and I believe contributed to the goal that the team conceded to bring Panama level. On Tuesday night, both goals were conceded by a defence that was asleep at the wheel. The first goal happened in slow motion with the defenders sleepwalking through the sequence of events until the ball was in the back of the net. The second was equally embarrassing with one player getting the better of three or four defenders and then slotting the ball home from an acute angle. But if Nosworthy’s absence was a factor in the draw against Panama, what was the cause of the debacle in Costa Rica. Surely, that cannot be put down exclusively to the lack of chemistry?

The math is that after three of ten rounds Jamaica is at the bottom of the table with two points and one goal scored. They have given up three. Those results are not trending in the right direction. The energy has been sucked out of the campaign. We wait to hear what Captain Burrell has to say about this performance. Earlier this year he had expressed confidence in his coaching staff. I wonder what he is thinking now?

So many things went wrong against Costa Rica

Another wake up call was bitterly delivered with a telling 2-0 defeat to our national team on Tuesday night in San Jose at the Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica, when the ´Los Ticos´ tapped twice on the shoulders and heads of our Reggae Boyz. Flying from a stellar high-altitude performance in Mexico, we have stuttered on the Liguanea plain and now quickly slumped to the depths of defeat in the central American region, to be rooted at the bottom of the very competitive hexagonal on two points as Panama lead on five points. Only three out of the ten games played, with four out of the six teams to possibly qualify and some nine weeks time before our next two games against regional powerhouses Mexico and the United States of American at home at ´The Office´ on June 4 and 7, respectively, we need now to get it right after our recent experiments with a newly-designed team, heavily dependent on the England-based Reggae Boyz. Save for the fresh-foot Mexican performance, that quick-fix, has not really worked. Is it all lost? Definitely not. iIs it now time to do a critical self-examination of our early experiences, results and methods? Absolutely yes.

THE GAME:

With just four minutes on the clock, Luton Shelton broke free on top of the penalty box before passing to Jermaine Beckford inside the area, but his simple slider, did not trouble the custodian, Keylor Navas. An unnecessary infringement in midfield by Rodolf Austin in the 22nd minute led to a freekick being floated high to the tall Alvaro Sobario, who evaded his marker Jermaine Taylor and passed across the box for central defender, Michael Umana to stroke past Ricketts from seven-yards for the first goal.

In response, Shelton then dismissed three defenders, but failed to chip it over the goalkeeper, to convert.

The second half, was more of the same with Los Ticos bossing the midfield, introducing substitute midfielder Diego Calvas, a 20-year-old, who skipped by a sliding tackle at the edge of the area by Taylor, then weaved by an onrushing Lloyd Doyley, who was easily side-stepped before curving the ball around Adrian Mariappa and a diving Donovan Ricketts inside the far post on minute 82.

It was another 20-year-old midfielder, however, who caught the eye and keep our vision fixed on him in Joel Campbell, who plays in Spain at Real Betis, as he created mayhem all night, finishing with six of the 12 shots on Ricketts´ goal a constant threat. His 77th minute dribble and cross should have resulted in the stretching Sabario scoring.

DIFFERENT APPROACH:

This time let us all take a broader collective approach to properly access our assests, weaknesses and the real opportunities to make the Jamaicans dream of a long overdue return to the FIFA World Cup in Brasil 2014.

Firstly, we have totally rejected the creative concept of midfield transition, born out the Brazilian mindset and mastered in Jamaica by our line of maestro´s climaxing in 1998, with Theodore ´Tappa´ Whitmore, now the coach.

Now, we overlook our talent and moreso the local players, ironically so after having over the last three years built a team of local-based players who were further developed in Europe and North America to exhibit high quality glimpses in the 2011 Gold Cup and over achieved to defeat USA, not since 2002, to once again qualify for the ´Hex´. We reward them by belatedly super-imposing a legion of English based professionals late in February 2013, not many of whom display extra-ordinary skill sets necessary to make a substantial positive impact on a continuous basis. In the short run, not worth the cost paid to dump all in concept, style and personnel we have invested in prior.

Have we forgotten ourselves?

Abandoning our short passing midfield possession in conjunction with designed flank overlapping runs at high pace for European styled long passes and direct one dimensional gambles has failed. Our opponents on the other hand have play a series of co-ordinated midfield short passes in all three games so far.

In Mexico, tactical teamwork, defensive discipline and professionalism assisted by Dr Fraser´s physical preparation programme got us a great result. In the second game, Panama dominated at will and when three midfield substitutions were deployed in the second half, without a valid response, it exaggerated the weakness almost to a point of surrender, but defensively good enough not to lose. Seemingly, not interested in that geographical area, we again vacated the transitional zone to allow Costa Rica total dominance and snatch a convincing 2-0 victory.

Our team´s lack of singular midfield leadership with below par performances from Austin in the defensive zone and Shelton in the creative areas, have been very disappointing so far. The new additions of Marvin Elliott, Jobi McAnuff and Garath McCleary have not delivered much. Defensively, as a pair, Elliott has not worked well in tandem with Austin as both plays are regularly beaten with the same ball. Elliott, in particular, lacks mobility and ball handling skills, hence the team is not confident to pass our way out of defence, but instead more inclined to launch speculative passes that are inaccurate.

The Reading United pair of McAnuff and McCleary defend well on the flanks only, but they disappear from the precious area inside the midfield, their very slow dribbling skills have not served them well in attack or counter-attack in this fast-paced region of world football. Once again the pairing of Shelton and Jermaine Beckford as attacking players -- With the latter just recovering from injury and lacking in match fitness, confidence and finesse -- reaps limited rewards. Still no goals from them.

The midfielders and attackers are not working as an effective unit of five or six players in co-ordination at the right moments in the prescribed places with three sub-grouping combinations not producing: defensively Elliott and Austin, possessively McAnuff and McCleary, in attack Shelton and Beckford.

Precision, the name of next games

Positively, the JFF has announced a prominent friendly international in May in The Bahamas against Tottenham Hotspurs and should seize the opportunity to get another game plus an extended camp as the English and local Premier Leagues players a chance to bond and gel.

This should allow the technical team to have a concentrated period of the majority of the squad, save for the Scandinavian and North American players, who are still in competition but could be available for games only.

Luck has smiled on us to host the Mexico game early on June 4 followed by USA on June 7 and then an immediate obligation away in Honduras, a massive triple treat that we must maximise to elevate our position into the top- places at the half-way mark.

Jermaine ´Teddy´ Johnson, our brightest spark in attack, should be suspended from playing in the USA game as he accumulated two cautions in the last three games against Mexico and Costa Rica.

Last but not least, the player selection process has to be spot on. We would hope to see roles for Jermaine Hue and Dane Richards, Darren Mattocks, Jermaine ´Tuffy´ Anderson, and if fit, Tremaine Stewart.

Oh no! - Boyz deliver another poor show in loss to Costa Rica

‘Tappa’ urges Boyz to find scoring boots fast

IF the Reggae Boyz want to win games then they had better start taking their opportunities.

That´s the view of head coach Theodore Whitmore following his team´s 0-2 loss to Costa Rica in their third-round CONCACAF World Cup Qualifier at the Estadio Nacional on Tuesday night, which has now condemned the Reggae Boyz to last place in the hexagonal, with two points.

However, the leaders Panama are only on five points and, despite the setback, Whitmore believes there is still a far way to go, and he´s convinced his charges can bounce back and stake a claim for one of the three automatic tickets to the Brazil 2014 World Cup Finals.

"I think it would have to be up front, especially in the first half," was the head coach´s response to the area of sector of his team he was most disappointed with.

"At this stage we need to be scoring goals if we want to win games, and once we are not scoring goals... if you look at the Costa Ricans they made use of

their chances," he said, while noting that at the end of the day his team did not create enough opportunities, though the ones they created were pretty decent.

As was reported, the Panamanians, dissatisfied with FIFA´s response to their appeal against the wintry conditions under which their team was forced to play against the United States in Colorado last Friday night, demonstrated their protest by turning their backs to the playing of the FIFA Anthem and the arrival of the FIFA Fair Play flag.

However, they respectfully stood at attention for the playing of both national anthems.

The formalities apart, the Reggae Boyz threatened early after the prompt 8:00 pm start and created the first real chance after only three minutes, when Luton Shelton stole possession of the ball midway the ´Los Ticos´s´ half and ran at the defence before relaying a pass to strike partner Jermaine Beckford, whose weak angled shot was gleefully accepted by goalkeeper Keylor Navas.

Then just before the half-time interval, Jamaica had a glorious chance to draw level with perhaps their most fluent passing move of the whole night. Goalkeeping captain Donovan Ricketts picked up a loose ball just outside his area on the right. He relayed a pass to Jermaine Taylor, who picked out right back Lloyd Doyley. The Watford defender played the ball inside to Rodolph Austin at the centre circle, and his first time pass to Garath McCleary on the right flank just inside Costa Rica´s half was squeezed diagonal into the centre of the pitch for Beckford.

As the Huddersfield frontman attempted to race for goal, the ball fell kindly to Shelton, who accelerated between the two central defenders inside the penalty area, but instead of shooting at the worried Navas, he took on the recovering Christian Gamboa and, after turning the right back, he could not beat the advancing Navas. That was a decent chance missed.

In an open game, where the hosts were desperate for maximum points, Joel Campbell´s intended cross from the right flank sparked concerns in the Jamaican camp as Adrian Mariappa sliced his clearance behind for a corner.

And, as the early action continued, Rodolph Austin tested the palms of Navas with a thunderous 30-yard free kick, all inside the first 10 minutes of play.

However, on minute 22 the Reggae Boyz paid the price for lax defending from an innocuous free kick from their left side of the final third. Ariel Rodriquez lobbed a gentle floater to the far post, where striker Alvaro Saborio was given the luxury of controlling with his right foot unattended, before laying off the ball for central defender Michael Umana, who had ventured forward for the set piece. He never needed a second invitation to slot home from inside the six-yard box.

Whitmore was far from impressed with the manner in which his team defended that set piece.

"I am very disappointed, but this is football, and once you are playing against opponents, especially with this quality, they´ll turn half chances into chances," was his response.

Whitmore, while admitting that the result was "disappointing", thought the game could have changed had Shelton taken that chance approaching the break.

"I think the result was very disappointing, and we lost the lead in the first half. The second half we came out and played, but I think going into the half-time break we could have equalised, and that would have changed the whole picture of the game, but we have to remain focused because we have seven games to go and we have to start picking up points now, and turning these one point into three points," he said.

Though the Boyz connected more with their passes in the second half, Costa Rica created a few openings as the game became more open. Another set piece similar to the one of the 22nd minute was not well defended by the Boyz, and Campbell flashed a left-footed volley wide of Ricketts´s goal frame, during a period when the Real Betis winger tormented the Jamaican defence.

On another occasion he shot just wide, and moments later his grounded pass rolled invitingly across the face of Ricketts´ goal mouth, as Saborio tried in vain to get the final touch on it.

In-between substitute Jermaine Johnson, who will be suspended for the next game after receiving his second yellow card caution in this final phase, unleashed a testing pile driver, which Navas could only parry wide, but the Boyz failed to do much with the rebound, until the wind was knocked from the Boyz´s sails in the 82nd minute when substitute Diego Calvo teased his way past Taylor on the right side of the penalty area, cut back and around Doyley before firing into the far side of the goal to make the points safe for the hosts.

Whitmore is now looking ahead.

"The good thing for us now is that our next game is in June, and we are supposed to have the Boyz for a quite some time where we can do some work and try to get the team together. We still have a far way to go, because if you look at the points table we don´t have any run-away leaders, so we need to remain calm, focused and try to get the job done."

About fucking time....

T&T PM mum on Jack Warner FBI probe

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar says she will not be rushed into making any public statement on international reports that her National Security Minister Austin ‘Jack’ Warner may be implicated in a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe involving soccer’s global governing body.

“I will not rely on published reports in the media, but will again seek to get official corroboration of the information now in the public domain before making any determination or pronouncement,” Persad Bissessar said in a statement late Wednesday.

Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley has in the past consistently called on Persad Bissessar to dismiss Warner from the Cabinet over the International Football Federation (FIFA) scandal. He has so far made no comment on the latest disclosure.

Reuters News Service in an exclusive report Wednesday said that an FBI probe into alleged corruption in international soccer has recently intensified after investigators persuaded a key party to be a cooperating witness, US law enforcement sources said.

The news agency quoted the sources as saying that Daryan Warner, the son of the National Security Minister and former FIFA vice-president is assisting the probe, but could not say who might be charged, or when.

“While the exact scope of the investigation is not clear, among the matters under scrutiny are two previously reported allegations involving Jack Warner, who is currently national security minister in his native Trinidad and Tobago.

“The deepening of the probe indicates that a succession of corruption scandals involving FIFA and other international soccer bodies in the past few years may continue to cast a cloud over the sport for some time,” Reuters reported.

The international news agency said that Warner has not been charged with any wrongdoing and that since 2011, the FBI has been examining more than US$500,000 in payments made by the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) over the past 20 years to an offshore company.

It said that was a period during which Warner was also head of the CFU, a position he held from the early 1980s until 2011, and that the precise reasons for many of those payments is unclear.

This is not the first time that Persad Bissessar has sought to tread carefully in international football matters involving Warner, the former head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF).

In 2011, she stood by her embattled senior cabinet minister, when he was temporarily suspended by FIFA, while allegations of bribery against him were being investigated.

She said then that it is a fundamental tenet of the rule of law that a man is innocent until proven guilty.

“This right is enshrined in the constitution of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and is an important pillar in our system of justice. And so, the decision by FIFA to initiate a “provisional suspension” of its vice president Jack Warner, pending investigation, is not a determination of guilt, but part of a process that we trust will be fair and unprejudiced,” she said.

Football’s world governing body had pledged to investigate bribery allegations against Warner, former presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam and two Caribbean Football Union (CFU) officials, temporarily suspending them from activity connected with the game.

Warner and Bin Hammam had been accused of offering US$40,000 to national associations of the CFU at a meeting on May 10 and 11, in return for their votes in the FIFA presidential election.

Bin Hammam was to face incumbent FIFA president Sepp Blatter for the top post in the game in an election on June 1, 2011 in Zurich, Switzerland, but withdrew his challenge amidst the allegations.

Warner had promised to “say a lot on this matter” and had vowed to “vigorously defend my reputation as well as the reputation of the rest of the Caribbean members”.

But Warner later quit his FIFA and CONCACAF positions in June 2011 and FIFA afterwards declared that, "the presumption of innocence is maintained" in his case.

The Reggae Boyz seemed disjointed

´disjointed´ , skal det oversættes som ; ´uden joints´ , ´frataget joints´ ;-)

disjointed´ , skal det oversættes som ; ´uden joints´ , ´frataget joints´ ;-)

Hehehehe God pointe, det forklarer ihvertfald kvaliteten af deres "passing game"...."pass it on mon" ...*Hell no it´s mine".....:-)