Repatriation

If you are Jamaican then you would be unable to "not" acknowledge the strides being made by our REGGAE BOYZ in their bid to qualify for the world cup finals in South Africa. Our first match against Canada was a poor showing by all means, especially< with our special one (Rene Simoes) back at he head. We came out and we gave a lackluster performance and only managed a draw due to a goal keeping blunder from a corner that allowed Andy “di bomber” Williams to score Jamaica’s first goal in this qualification effort.

The match against Honduras saw Jamaica give a spirited fight in the first half only to be outplayed in the second half which saw the giving up two soft goals.
The match, if you want to call it that, against Mexico was a disaster, utter disaster, disater on the part of the Jamaican and after the first three games Jamaica stood one 1 point.

This was a big pill for the JFF to swallow and the special one was made to pay. He was fired with immediate effect.

Then came the Jamaican born and bred Theodore “Tappa” Whitmore, the man that single handedly led Jamaica to their first World Cup victory with two scintillating goal to stun the Japanese. “Tappa” was for a long time one of Jamaica’s most skillful players. Tappa was to pick up a role he was familiar with in Jamaican club football. He was to assume the role of Technical Director (interim). This role was not strange to “Tappa” as he led Jamaica to victories over El Salvador and Guatemala; indeed he has not yet tasted defeat as a National Coach.

He came in and immediately made his presence felt by doing away with the young and inexperienced players as well as the one I call “Rene’s Loyalty Player” Deon Burton. He brought into the side players who were proven big game players, Jamaal Campbell-Rice being one such player.

Immediately we got the result we were looking for against the team we were most unlikely to do it against, The Mighty Mexicans. They Mexicans no doubt thought it would have been much of the same as what took place in the Azteca Stadium when they whipped us 3 – 0. Oh how surprised they were when in the sixteenth minute Ricardo Fuller put Jamaica ahead with a deflected shot from outside the 18yrd box. We never looked back. After the Mexico match we were on 4 points and all hopes renewed, for we on our way to doing what the Rastas sing about Repatriation (World cup – South Africa, get it?).

Wednesday when we met the Hondurans we had only one thing on our minds, WIN. Nothing less would be accepted or be enough. Win we did by the same margin we won against Mexico 1-0 and suddenly “Tappa” is “God”, football god that is. What was more, Mexico drew with Canada that same day which put us in a great possession to advance.

We now had seven points with Mexico on ten, Honduras on 9 and Canada on 2. What this means is that if we are to qualify for the next round we need to beat Canada by about 6 clear goals so that if Honduras and Mexico were to draw then we would go above Honduras on goal difference. But if Mexico should beat Honduras and we win then we would go through on points. Mexico needs a result from their match with Honduras so they may play for the win (we hope).

Lets see how it goes……………………………………… on our way to Africa through Canada with some help from Mexico.