Assistant coach of the Reggae Girls, Deon Burton, is happy with the team’s increased number of games ahead of October’s start of the CONCACAF Women’s World Cup Qualifiers.
Since last November, the Girlz have played five International Friendlies against South Africa, Peru and Mexico with a sixth coming against the Mexicans on Tuesday.
After the Mexico test, they will travel to Brazil for a pair of friendlies in June.
“Excellent. The more opportunities we can get with the ladies, the better,” Burton said in an interview with JFF Live on Monday.
“It’s all about objectives. We have the World Cup Qualifiers in October as much time we can get on the grass with them, it will only benefit us towards the end goal which is qualification for the World Cup,” he added.
Most recently, the Girlz suffered a 0-3 defeat at the hands of the Mexicans in the first game on Saturday at the CPKC Stadium in Kansas City and will look for a positive result at the Shell Energy Stadium in Houston tomorrow.
“We’ve done a lot of reflection actually, be it from squad meetings or individual meetings just to reiterate the problems we found and things to solve moving forward. It’s been very good to have the time with the players to do that and put it in place for the game tomorrow," said Burton
Burton, who scored 13 goals in 62 appearances for the Reggae Boyz from 1997 to 2009, is leading the team in the absence of head coach Hubert Busby Jr due to personal reasons.
He about the opportunity to coach a Jamaica team for the first time, albeit in not the best circumstances.
“In the absence of coach Busby, it’s been a great honor and a privilege to lead out the team and there’s been great help from all of the rest of the staff. We’ve all come together in his absence to make sure that everything is still run as smoothly as possible,” Burton said.
“He’s still been leading the ship. He’s giving us the ok in everything we’re doing and he’s been in non-stop communication, even with the team meetings, he’s been involved via zoom call and facetime so he’s been a part of every process that we’ve done,” he added.
Heading into Tuesday’s game, Burton highlighted the team being more focused on and off the ball as something he’s looking to work on.
“Reiterating the same objectives just to knuckle down on them and implement them more. Just be more on point with everything we do in and out of possession. This is our last opportunity to train this afternoon so we’ll fine tune a few things and then be ready fully for tomorrow’s game,” he said.