Downswell confident under-20s 'can move on'

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

With less than two weeks to go before Jamaica's Under-20 footballers' Caribbean Football Union men's second-round qualifiers in Guyana, head coach Wendell Downswell is optimistic they will advance from the group.

This is despite the lack of preparation and match practice.

The junior Reggae Boyz are scheduled to leave the island on October 4 for the tournament, which will be held in Guyana from October 4 to 11. The team is scheduled to play three matches against Grenada, the British Virgin Islands and the hosts.

The top team in the group will advance to the CONCACAF final round of 12 teams and the second-place team will play the runners-up of the other group for a spot in the final round.

Good crop of players

"We are confident that we can move on from this group because we have a good crop of players who are very talented. A number of them also play in the Premier League and so they have some amount of experience under their belt," said Downswell.

"We have gone three camps so far and we are pretty satisfied with what we have seen from the youngsters. It is a pretty short time in terms of the preparations, but we are making the best opportunity of it," Downswell said.

"The youngsters have been responding in a very positive way and so this is a step in the right direction for us."

Downswell added that most of the players are currently in school and many of them are playing in the Manning and daCosta Cup competitions, which is posing a major challenge to get everybody to train on a regular basis at the same time.

"However, we have been getting good cooperation from the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association and the respective schools and therefore that will eliminate some of the challenges that we are faced with and we are looking forward to moving from the first round on to the final round."

The CONCACAF Finals will be held in Guatemala in March 2011.