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.
Bristol City Women 0-4 Man City Women: Hosts relegated as Fowler double inspires WSL leaders
Mary Fowler scored twice to set WSL leaders Manchester City on their way to a 4-0 rout of Bristol City, who suffered relegation as a result, on Sunday.
With Arsenal having drawn with Everton earlier in the day, Man City knew a victory would be enough to take the title race down to two teams.
That victory duly arrived in emphatic fashion, with all four of Man City's goals arriving in the second half.
Fowler's fantastic strike opened the scoring in the 62nd minute, with the Australia international doubling her tally soon after, paving the way for an Amy Rodgers own goal and Alex Greenwood's late header to seal a huge victory.
Arsenal are now out of the title race, with Chelsea - who have two games in hand on Gareth Taylor's team - the only side capable of catching Man City.
The Robins, meanwhile, will be playing in the second tier again next term.
Data Debrief: Bristol heading down with a whimper
Bristol City have failed to score in their last five games in the WSL, a run of 544 minutes without a goal.
They mustered just 0.09 expected goals (xG) to Man City's 3.4, with the visitors having now kept a clean sheet in nine of their 20 league games this season.
De Rossi demands more from 'tired' Roma ahead of crunch run
Daniele De Rossi acknowledged his Roma team may be tired, but he insisted they must not allow themselves to be embarrassed.
Roma fought back to draw 2-2 with last season's Serie A champions Napoli in a pulsating fixture on Sunday.
Tammy Abraham's late header secured a point for De Rossi's team, who took the lead through Paulo Dybala's penalty before going behind to goals from Matias Olivera and Victor Osimhen.
With Serie A set to have five teams in the Champions League next season, Roma occupy fifth spot with four matches remaining, but sixth-placed Atalanta are just two points behind with a game in hand.
There is also the small matter of a Europa League semi-final against Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen on the cards over the coming weeks, and De Rossi set the stall out.
"We drew, it is not a result to throw away, but it is not the result or the performance that we wanted," Roma coach Daniele De Rossi told Sky Sports Italia.
"At times you can steal the ball off Napoli, but we then gave it back again too many times. Napoli had a lot of chances in the first half, we did better in the second, but we have to do better.
"Look, we are tired, but we cannot start thinking that we’re tired and that means we can be embarrassed in the final few weeks of the season."
Roma host Leverkusen on Thursday before taking on Juventus on May 5, with a crunch clash against Atalanta – who are also into the Europa League semi-finals – set to follow after the away leg against Xabi Alonso's team.
Key to a successful end to the campaign for Roma will be keeping Dybala fit. The Argentine has been involved in the joint-most goals (12) in Serie A since the turn of the year, scoring nine and setting up three, level with Juve's Dusan Vlahovic.
PSG's latest Ligue 1 title arrives as Monaco lose to Lyon
Paris Saint-Germain have been crowned as Ligue 1 champions after Lyon overcame Monaco 3-2 on Sunday.
A 4-1 midweek win over Lorient ensured that one more victory would be enough for Luis Enrique's team to get over the line, but PSG failed to get the job done themselves when they faced relegation-threatened Le Havre on Saturday.
That game was the 700th match of the QSI era at PSG, and the club's 1,900th in France's top flight.
However, PSG's wait to win their third straight title did not last long, as less than 24 hours later, Lyon – who will face the Parisians in the final of the Coupe de France at the end of May – came out on top in a topsy turvy encounter with second-placed Monaco.
Substitute Malick Fofana was the matchwinner for Lyon, and ultimately the player who handed the title to PSG.
Wissam Ben Yedder had put Monaco ahead in the opening minute, but quickfire goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Said Benrahma turned the match on its head before half-time.
Ben Yedder netted his second to restore parity on the hour mark, and thought he had sealed his hat-trick when he volleyed in from a free-kick, only to have strayed offside.
With only a win good enough for Monaco to stay in the fight, the visitors were then caught out in the 84th minute, with Fofana racing onto Lacazette's throughball and finishing calmly.
After a dismal start to the season, relegation looked a real possibility for Lyon, but they are now, with three games remaining, still in with a shout of qualifying for Europe.
PSG on the other hand now have 12 Ligue 1 titles to their name, with 10 of those coming under QSI's ownership. Aside from the COVID-impacted 2019-20 season, five of their last six league titles have been secured before the start of May.
It also means Luis Enrique remains in the running for a treble in his first season at the club, with PSG taking on Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-finals next week.
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