A significantly Jamaica National Senior Women’s Football Team will face Panama in Group B of the CONCACAF Women’s Gold Cup Qualifiers inside Estadio Rommel Fernandez in Panama City at 6:00 pm (Jamaica time) on Wednesday.
Originally scheduled to be held at Estadio Universitaro in Panonome, the venue was changed to ensure the safety and security of all involved. Furthermore, it has been reported that no tickets will be sold, with only families and friends of players allowed in attendance.
Recent protests in Panama have disrupted the Jamaican team’s preparations since their arrival, forcing them to change hotels and alter their schedule and logistics. The protests are against a contract awarded to a Canadian company for copper mining in a biodiverse region, which has raised concerns among powerful unions and environmentalists.
The Jamaicans were slotted into Group B after losing a two-legged tie to Canada 1-4 on aggregate in the CONCACAF Olympic Games Play-in, but a chance to reach the 2024 W Gold Cup is there for the taking for them.
Jamaica’s team, referred to as the Reggae Girlz, finds itself in a challenging situation as they head into the Gold Cup qualifiers. They have lost several key players, including those who took the team to the Round of 16 at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, due to a pay dispute and other issues with the local governing body of football, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF).
The Reggae Girlz en bloc have declined call-ups for these qualifiers, citing “continued mistreatment” by the JFF.
Furthermore, the team has undergone a change in leadership, with head coach Lorne Donaldson not having his contract renewed since the World Cup and the Olympic Games qualifiers. Xavier Gilbert, who served as an assistant to Donaldson during the World Cup, was appointed head coach on an interim basis last Thursday.
Gilbert has selected a much-weakened team comprising several college players and a few professionals. Despite the challenges, he remains focused on the task at hand and is emphasizing mental and tactical preparations given the limited practice time.
“It has to be a concern; the team will not be at its best, especially with a new bunch, but that’s what we have to work with,” he said.
He continued, “I can only control what I can control, and that’s the approach I’m taking, so we are just going to try to organize them tactically and hopefully whatever we get to do we will be able to give a good performance.”
But the current situation in Panama has done Gilbert and his players no favors. If anything, it has made it more difficult for them. Still, he was grateful to the authorities for the manner in which they have responded.
“We have been here from Sunday and we were in another city and there is a protest and it affected us. I must give credit to CONCACAF and the local organizing committee for responding the way they did and they tried to get us out the same time we landed on Sunday but it is three hours away from the airport, so it was difficult and then yesterday [Monday] in the morning we couldn’t move because the roads were blocked.
“The good thing is that it didn’t affect any of the players and that’s commendation to the local organizing committee and CONCACAF again. Once we picked up the players they moved them straight to this hotel here, so that was good. They didn’t encounter any delays or anything [bad] and that’s paramount, but it still has its challenges because now we are in a position [where] the training venue [has] changed, the game venue [has] changed and we are still uncertain on some logistics as it relates to time.”
The coach was concerned with the logistics of scheduling a time for training on Tuesday, the only training opportunity for the team with new players going into a competitive international game.
Up to Tuesday Gilbert confirmed that he had only 15 players with a few more expected in later that day.
“We have 15 players here so far, still expecting another couple and then we will take it from there. Unfortunately I’m not sure that we’ll have Shaniel Buckley [as] she’s at the Pan Am Games and she hasn’t left as yet so that’s a huge blow for us. Bailey, along with Destiny Powell and Chris-Ann Chambers were a part of the team in Chile competing at the Pan American Games, who were drafted into the Gold Cup qualifiers.
They were to have departed Chile on Monday for Panama.
With very little practice time on the training pitch, Gilbert was hoping to emphasize on the mental side of preparation as a last-ditch effort. “We going to have to do a lot of mental and tactical preparations as it relates to how we want to approach some things,” he said.
One of the players called up by Gilbert is the 30-year-old Chinyelu Asher, who has scored six goals in 29 international appearances for Jamaica. The [player was a member of the 2019 World Cup squad and Gilbert noted that her experience makes her the ideal candidate to captain this young group.
“Chinyelu Asher, based on her experience and playing at the international level and playing at the World Cup, she is the most experienced and most capped player here and it’s fitting for her to be the leader,” he said.
For Asher, the task at hand is obvious.
“We have a young team but we have quality, so whatever we do we need to approach it with that confidence that we can take down this team and trust in the game-plan that we have and come together and do that,” she said.
“I think this program is full of a lot of rich talent. Panama is a tough opponent, always been and so we will definitely face them with that respect tomorrow and take this game pretty seriously. We’ve obviously battled against them quite a few times and I’m sure everyone remembers those battles, so I think it’s good that we have an idea of what we are facing.”
In the September window, Panama split two games against Guatemala, winning 3-0 in the first game away to Guatemala, while losing the second game at home 3-2.
Jamaica defeated Panama 1-0 in the group stage of the World Cup in Australia. Jamaica had also beaten Panama on penalties during the 2018 CONCACAF W Championships after playing to a 2-2 result in regulation time. That victory booked Jamaica’s passage to the France 2019 Women’s World Cup.
The US and Canada have already secured their spots by winning the CONCACAF Women’s Championship and the CONCACAF Olympic Games Play-in, respectively. Meanwhile, as the four top teams in the 2022 Copa America Femenina, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Paraguay have also secured berths to the Gold Cup.
League A is divided into three three-team groups; the champions will automatically qualify for the Women’s Gold Cup, while the runners-up will compete in the play-offs. They will set up make –or-break matches with the winners of three four-team League B groups, with the play-off winners securing a spot in the competition.
Jamaica will face Guatemala inside Kingston’s National Stadium on Sunday.
