Head Coach of Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz, Lorne Donaldson, has admitted that his team played poorly and were deservedly thumped 5-0 by World Champions United States of America in their second-round preliminary game in the ongoing CONCACAF Women’s Championship on Thursday.
Sophia Smith opened the scoring with a brace in the fifth and eighth minutes to take a -0 lead into the halftime break.
However, Rose Lavelle in the 59th, Kristie Mewis with a penalty in the 83, and Trinity Rodman, daughter of former National Basketball Association legend Dennis Rodman, sealed the deal with an 86th-minute stroke inside Estadio BBVA Bancomer.
The result guaranteed the US a place in next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup Finals in Australia and New Zealand, but coupled with Haiti’s 3-0 demolition of hosts Mexico in the later game, left the Reggae Girlz’s chances of automatic qualification hanging by a thread.
Haiti, beaten 3-0 by the USA on Monday, jumped from last place to second with just one round of the preliminary round game to go, usurping Jamaica on goal difference, as both teams are on three points. Mexico is pointless at the bottom of the four-team group.
Haiti’s Roselord Borgello opened the scoring with a penalty with eight minutes on the clock, and Nerilia Mondesir added another from the penalty spot on the 67th. 11 minutes later Sherly Jeudy sealed victory with a free-kick.
“We gave up two goals in like six minutes, we were actually shi**y, we didn’t play well and we are not going to play the world champions that badly and expect any good (result) coming out of that game. We weren’t good,” Donaldson lamented.
He added: “The Americans played much better today (Thursday) than they did the other day (against Haiti). They are the best team in the world. You play the champions and they are on top of their game, bad things are going to happen if you are not playing good.”
Donaldson was also not surprised at the incisiveness of Smith who basically put Jamaica to the sword after just eight minutes with a pair of goals.
“Give her half a chance she’s going to take it. Excellent footballer, so I don’t expect less from her. We talked about her in meetings but she’s a special talent.”
Though losing heavily to the number one ranked team on the FIFA list, Donaldson is not overly perturbed about his charges’ chances of claiming one of the automatic berths.
“They know it’s a three-game series, we talked about that. Everybody has lost a game except the USA in this group, so we are still right there going into the next game. I think we are going to be fine, we are going to be ready.”
The Reggae Girlz coach also explained the reason for omitting Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Drew Spence from the starting line-up.
“Dropping Drew Spence, she’s a little bit tired, she hasn’t played a match in maybe three months, so she was heavy-legged. We know we have another game and we have to rotate players in this kind of tournament and in this kind of heat. Obviously, most of our players’ fitness is not as good as we want it to be, so that’s one of the reasons. We know we have another match.”
And despite the gulf in class between the two teams, the coach was displeased with the manner in which the players needlessly gave away possession of the ball.
“The worst thing was when we get the ball we gave it right back to them, we just couldn’t link up and play to break the pressure, so our front three just couldn’t find the ball and couldn’t link “
The final round of games will be played simultaneously next Monday at 9:00 pm at Estadio BBVA Bencomer.
Group A Points Standings
Team P W L D Gf Ga Gd Pts
USA 2 2 0 0 8 0 8 6
Haiti 2 1 1 0 3 3 0 3
Jamaica 2 1 1 0 1 5 -4 3
Mexico 2 0 2 0 0 4 -4 0
