John Wall.
Head Coach of Jamaica’s Under-20 Reggae Boyz, John Wall, says senior professional minutes will be the main benchmark for the selection of his squad for the Concacaf Under-20 Qualifiers set for February 23-March 2, 2024 across five venues in Central America and the Caribbean.
Jamaica were drawn alongside Bermuda, Grenada and St. Kitts & Nevis in Group F of the qualifiers. That group will play at the SKNFA Technical Center in Basseterre, St. Kitts & Nevis.
“What I’m interested in is the long haul and figuring out how these players can become first team players for Jamaica,” said Wall at a Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) press conference on Thursday.
“It’s been a process ever since March on a monthly basis in except July and September-November. In those months, it’s hard to get access to the players. We’re close to 80 players reviewed since March,” he said. We’re already pretty much fully operative and people are voluntarily scouting for us and providing reports so I’m pretty close to actually delivering the 60-man squad that will be the provisional list sent to Concacaf,” he added.
Wall then outlined that he is using the blueprint of the youth setups of Denmark and Uruguay for how he is selecting players for his squad, mentioning senior minutes played as the main benchmark for those teams.
“I’ve used Denmark and Uruguay as a benchmark. They’re pretty close in terms of size of the nation. Denmark’s U-21, and I’m taking two highest leagues, by October this year, has 21,885 senior professional minutes and a squad market value of 29 million Euros. Uruguay, who won the U-20 World Cup, 18,000+ and a squad value of 28 million Euros. How close is Jamaica to that on a global scale?” he said.
“For me, I have to look at senior professional minutes first and looking domestically, it’s a semi-professional league in JPL so that’s the closest we can get there. Globally, how close are the players to actually playing senior professional football? The margin now globally is that players are getting younger and younger, better educated and kind of pre-selected. Domestically, you’re looking at age groups that were hit the most by Covid and did not play too much at all so it’s been a race to the bottom depletion of the pool. Unfortunately, I cannot relate to schoolboy football and converting that to global football; it’s a different game,” he added.
Once the provisional squad is selected, Wall says the plan going forward is to get some friendlies and try to utilize as many players as possible leading into the qualifiers.
“Moving on, what we’re looking at is in January to play a friendly where we’ll utilize players from Jamaica and North America and furthermore, heading into February prior to the qualifiers, being on a camp and playing an added two more friendlies that are of a high quality so we will be prepared well for the qualifiers. Then we will be able to utilize an even bigger group of players,” he said.
“It’s been a gradual thing, trying to utilize as many players as possible. Speaking of that, we have assessed, we have reviewed, we have scouted and done due diligence prior to all of this. I am human meaning on the selection day there will be one or two players that might’ve been there,” Wall added.
Bradley Jacks is a budding journalist and an avid sports fan. His love of research and sports has led him to SportsMax.tv, a place where those passions work hand in hand to allow him to produce content.
Kane gunning for Lewandowski's single-season Bundesliga goal record
Harry Kane has his eyes set on Robert Lewandowski's single-season Bundesliga goal record after scoring twice in Bayern Munich's 2-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt, though he knows he needs "to get a move on".
Kane scored in both halves on Saturday to take his tally to 42 goals this season across all competitions, also reaching the 400-goal mark at senior level for clubs and country.
The striker scored 280 of those goals for Tottenham, holding the honour of being the club's all-time leading scorer, while he is also the most prolific player in England history with 62 goals for the Three Lions.
With 35 goals in 31 Bundesliga appearances this season, Kane now has his eyes set on another piece of history.
Former Bayern striker Robert Lewandowski holds the record for the most goals scored in a single Bundesliga campaign, netting 41 times in 2020-21.
Asked about the possibility of breaking that record with just three games remaining in Bayern's league campaign, Kane said: "It's possible, but obviously I have to get a move on!
"I've got to maybe score a few goals next week. It's there, it's in touching distance.
"It depends on the last few games of course, but it was nice to add to it today and score a couple of goals to help the team."
Bayern next host Real Madrid in the first leg of a Champions League semi-final tie on Tuesday, before travelling to face Stuttgart on Saturday.
Pochettino says VAR 'damaging' English football as Chelsea denied Villa win
Mauricio Pochettino claimed VAR is "damaging" English football after Chelsea saw a potential winning goal chalked off at the end of their 2-2 Premier League draw with Aston Villa.
Despite a bright performance, Chelsea found themselves 2-0 down at half-time on Saturday with Marc Cucurella putting through his own net before Morgan Rogers added Villa's second.
Goals from Noni Madueke and Conor Gallagher dragged Chelsea level as they penned Villa back after the break, but the Blues were enraged in stoppage time when Axel Disasi saw a potential winner ruled out.
Disasi headed home in the fifth minute of stoppage time to spark wild celebrations among the visiting Chelsea fans, only for referee Craig Pawson to disallow the goal following a pitchside VAR review, ruling Benoit Badiashile pushed Diego Carlos in the build-up.
With that incident coming just one week after Chelsea were denied a penalty in their FA Cup semi-final loss to Manchester City despite Jack Grealish appearing to handle Cole Palmer's free-kick, Pochettino has had enough.
"Everyone that was watching the game will feel disappointed. The referee said it was a foul and disallowed the goal after going to the VAR to confirm," he told TNT Sports.
"The referee is unbelievable and it's ridiculous. It is difficult to accept these types of things. In the semi-final it was handball and it was no penalty, the referee didn't check it.
"It is painful as it has damaged English football and I think Villa players and their fans didn't understand why the goal was disallowed.
"They said it was a foul and if you see the challenge… if we go into every single challenge like this and it is going to be a foul, we wouldn't finish the game with 11 players.
"We can talk about the performance or the decision – it is damaging the game."
Pochettino had no complaints about Chelsea's performance, though, as they avoided defeat for just the fourth time in 51 Premier League games when trailing by two or more goals at half-time.
The Blues previously achieved that feat in a 3-3 draw with Sheffield Wednesday in 1992, a memorable 2-2 draw with Tottenham in 2016 and another 3-3 draw with West Brom in 2020.
Chelsea racked up 21 shots to Villa's nine and put up 1.57 expected goals (xG) to the hosts' 1.1, with Nicolas Jackson and Palmer spurning glorious chances in either half.
"The performance was very good," Pochettino said. "We played really well and it is true in the first half we conceded too easily.
"To play Villa, who are fighting for the top four, I am pleased with the team. Now, we have to move on and the headlines will be about the disallowed goal."
New England Revolution 1-4 Inter Miami: Messi at the double as Herons run riot
Lionel Messi scored twice and laid on a goal for Luis Suarez as Inter Miami retained their three-point lead at the Eastern Conference summit with a 4-1 win over the New England Revolution.
A franchise-record crowd of 65,612 people witnessed a flying start from the Revs as they took the lead within just 37 seconds at Gillette Stadium. Carles Gil pounced on some sloppy play from Miami to tee up Tomas Chancalay, who lobbed Drake Callender for the opener.
However, Miami roared back with Messi leading from the front. They had a deserved equaliser just after the half-hour mark, Messi slotting home after latching onto Robert Taylor's throughball.
Messi had his second after 67 minutes, producing another composed finish after former Barcelona team-mate Sergio Busquets split the New England backline.
Messi was involved in another two goals as Miami added some gloss to the scoreline late on; his first-time shot was saved by Henrich Ravas but Benjamin Cremaschi was on hand to score on the rebound after 83 minutes, then the Argentine teed up Suarez for a curled finish five minutes later.
Miami stay three points clear of Supporters' Shield holders FC Cincinnati at the top of the East, with the Orange and Blue keeping pace by beating the Colorado Rapids 2-1 on Saturday.
Data Debrief: Messi rolls back the years
Ahead of Saturday's game, some feared Miami boss Gerardo Martino would opt to rest Messi after speaking of the risks of fielding the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner on New England's artificial pitch.
However, Messi came through 90 minutes with another mesmerising performance. He has now recorded a goal involvement in 10 straight club matches for the seventh time in his glittering career, last doing so for Barcelona between September and December in 2018.
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