U-20 coach close to finalising squad

Although a planned camp in Madrid during the European Christmas break fell through because of a spike in flu and other reasons, national under-20 coach John Wall says they were successful in scouting overseas talent and revealed he is close to finalising a 60-man provisional squad.

At a recent Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) press conference, Wall also revealed that many of the teams they were expected to meet during the camp were depleted by the virus.

Nevertheless, he revealed that they have an active scouting team, and that they have made contact with the players they have been alerted to, and are in the process of getting them naturalised.

“Globally, we are almost fully operative and people are voluntarily scouting for us and providing scout reports. We have assessed, reviewed and scouted and actually done the due diligence part of it.

“It’s an interesting process trying to initiate and review as many players as possible. We are close to getting 70, 80 players reviewed so far since March.

“I am pretty close to providing the 60-man squad that will be the provisional list sent to Concacaf and from that point those are going to be the players selected,” he said.

“The squad will include some schoolboys but some quality players will get left behind.

“We need to stress that on the selection day there may be one or two players who might (not) be there. But that’s fine. What I am interested in is the long haul and how these players can become first team (senior) players for Jamaica,” he added.

WIDE SELECTION POOL

The pool of players is broad and wide and could include players from England, North America, Germany, Belgium and Holland, some of whom are already undergoing their documentation processes.

“We have to lean on bureaucratic processes in terms of naturalisation. Contacts have been made and it has been a long process,” he said.

Meanwhile, there will be two friendlies in January as a replacement for the Madrid camp, where they will have a look at players, and Wall’s intention is to utilise players from Jamaica and North America.

In February, prior to the qualifiers in March, they will begin their preparation camp and play a few more friendlies against higher level opponents.

“So we will be prepared for the qualifiers, maybe then we will be able to utilise a much bigger pool of players.

“The double friendly we are looking for, the dates are to be decided and the exact week. And February, the lead-up to the tournament, has to be utilised as a camp,” he said.

livingston.scott@gleanerjm.com