Jamaica’s Under-20 Reggae Girlz left Jamaica for Trinidad and Tobago on Monday. The young women soccer players are confident of realizing their dream of succeeding as one of the three top teams at the CONCACAF Women U-20 Championship to be played in Trinidad & Tobago from January 18 through to Jan 28.
At the Championships, Jamaica will compete in Group B with Mexico, defending champions United States and Nicaragua.
Hosts Trinidad and Tobago will play in Group A against Canada, Haiti and Costa Rica.
The teams will be chasing one of three spots in the FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup to be staged in Paris, France in August.
The Jamaicans first game will be against Mexico on Friday, January 19. They play the USA on January 21, and Nicaragua on January 23.
Jamaica qualified for the CONCACAF Championships as the top Caribbean Football Union team to not only advance to the CONCACAF championships, and also made history as the only Caribbean country to qualify for the tournament on every attempt since its inception in 2002.
The young Reggae Girlz won their group during the first round of qualifying in Bermuda, with 10-0 and 2-1 wins over Curacao and Bermuda, respectively.
In second-round qualifiers in St Kitts and Nevis, the Jamaicans defeated both Dominican Republic and arch-rivals Haiti 1-0, followed by a 9-0 drubbing of the hosts.
The Reggae Girlz head Coach Lorne Donaldson said his team have made steady progress heading into the tournament, and has a realistic chance of securing one of the top two slots from the group stages and into the semi-final, where they will make a further push to be one of three teams to qualify for the World Cup.
