Interim Reggae Boyz Head Coach, Paul Hall, believes that with the requisite commitment from the players and a shift to a more front-foot approach, Jamaica could pose a serious threat to all and sundry for the remainder of the qualifiers.
Speaking from his England base via a Zoom presser, Hall, who was last week selected by the Jamaica Football Federation to replace Theodore Whitmore for the remainder of the FIFA CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers, sounded like a man clear in his mind of the magnitude of the task at hand and how he plans to execute same.
“The pressure is there, we know what we have to do. There is no hiding away from the fact that we need to pick up points. I believe that we’ve got the players to be able to pick up those points and really strike fear into the rest of the CONCACAF group, said Hall.
He added: “The squad must be committed; that’s one thing that I’ve always shown and I would expect commitment from each and every player.”
Though the 49-year-old appears to have clarity on how he wants the Reggae Boyz to play, he’s very much cognizant that for now, maximising points is what really matters.
“We are looking for results and we are just picking a team and a squad that is going to get us results. However, I do like to press really high, I do like to make sure that the team is attack-minded, and we like to pass the ball around, possession-based play. How much of that we can get out in the short term is going to be down to the work we do beforehand, but tactically we are looking to press and counter-press and hopefully in the five phases of the game try to dominate the opposition.”
The Reggae Boy legend who also works as Head Coach of the Queens Park Rangers Under-23 squad also explained that it was not easy to change a team’s personality overnight.
“It’s the way how you ask the players to play, so you are asking them to play a certain way. We have got players who can receive the ball and keep the ball and keep the ball in deep-lying midfield areas. We’ve just got to make sure that we create the situations for us to be able to not lose the ball, and focus on that and really focus on keeping the ball. The opposition have the answers, don’t they? If they come on a high press you might have to go around it or you might have to go over it. If they want to keep their team central you go around the press and if they go wide we can go through the press.”
Hall, who played as a Reggae Boyz forward in his days, hinted that his philosophy is to try to win the ball back as quickly as possible, get his players up the pitch in a controlled manner with intricate ball movement.
“I like to build play, I like to get the midfield players on the half-turn, playing forward.
“I really do believe that this group of players can respond to that pressure and really make it difficult for teams to play, especially in Jamaica. We’ve got four out of six games at home and we want to be able to make it a fortress and a difficult place for them (opponents) to come, like how they make it difficult for us to go there whenever we go to an away ground.”
Hall was appointed assistant head coach of the Reggae Boyz in June just prior to the CONCACAF Gold Cup Tournament in the US. He has been with Whitmore for the first eight games where Jamaica currently sit in sixth place on seven points, only ahead of El Salvador on six and Honduras on three points.
The group is being led by Canada on 16 points, followed by the United States on 15, Mexico and Panama on 14 and Costa Rica on nine points in the eight-team final round. Each team has six games remaining and Hall is optimistic his tweaks can bear fruit.
The top three teams gain automatic qualification to Qatar next year while the fourth-placed team earns the right to enter an InterContinental playoff for another shot at Qatar 2022.
“We all have a different approach on how we are, we can play 3-5-2, 4-3-3, we can all play it very differently. We can get our wingers to come inside, we can get our fullbacks attacking or we can do it the opposite way around and we can look to have rotations. I’m very much about rotation.”
Hall also believes that the players have not been playing freely which could have played a role in their underwhelming performances thus far.
“We just haven’t relaxed and played and shown what we really can do. My job is to get those players to relax and just play a bit more confidently and trust themselves and trust each other. Hopefully, we can play a bit more freely.”
Paul Hall will get an opportunity to test his readiness for the job when he assembles a team of US-based players plus locals to engage Peru in a friendly international on January 20 in Lima, Peru.
