New Reggae Boyz head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson has recalled captain Andre Blake to the Jamaican squad to face Argentina in a friendly international at the Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, on September 27.
Blake, the outstanding goalkeeper of the Philadelphia Union in Major League Soccer, was omitted from the squad after he made a social media posting criticizing the competence of the Jamaica Football Federation operatives.
The Icelandic coach, who was unveiled at a press conference at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel on Friday, revealed that he had made contact with the player after seeing news of the “embarrassing” episode.
“I hope we can start with everyone with a clean slate. This is not only an exciting project, but I know all projects have their problems from the past but I hope all the things that have happened from the past are in the past. I hope when we start, we don’t take problems from the past to the present,” Hallgrimsson told the media.
“Now in the press there is a lot written about Andre Blake, the captain of the team. For me it’s in the best-case scenario a little bit embarrassing, but I can tell you here we had a talk, the case is settled, he’s in the squad and hopefully me as a coach can start this co-operation with the captain in the team.”
Though fairly new to his four-year job as head coach of the team, Hallgrimsson says he took the decision to start right away instead of watching the game from stands.
“I had to take a decision maybe to sit in the stands and watch the game or just jump in the pool and be brave and start from day one and we decided to do this,” he said.
He added: “But I totally admit that I don’t know that much about Jamaica’s football yet but for sure I will try to do my best to know a lot more next time.”
He said he decided to start working and the first thing was to select a squad, for which he had good help from the technical staff. The criteria for the group in the first camp was to try to have the players playing at the highest-level start to look at them.
The third-ranked Argentina, unbeaten in more than 30 games, will be led by the inspirational Leo Messi, playing against the 64th-ranked Jamaica, and Hallgrimsson says he’s seen more quality strikers in the Jamaican pool of players than defenders.
“It’s a great opportunity because they will expose all of our weaknesses, especially defensive weaknesses,” he said.
“Probably, we will be defending more or less, most of the game so it’s really a good chance to see where we are when we compare to the best in the world.”
Next year will be huge for the national team starting with the Nations League match against Mexico and then next summer in the Gold Cup.
CNW Network understands that the Reggae Boyz could next be in action in Africa to oppose Cameroon ahead of the African team’s departure to the Qatar World Cup Finals. The match might not be played during the FIFA Window.
