By Nodley Wright, Freelance WriterLONG-TIME JAMAICA youth coach and the man now guiding the country's Under-17 team, Patrick Jackie Walters, is gushing with the excitement about the talent at his disposal.
Walters, along with goalkeeper coach Paul Campbell, has been going around the island parish by parish trying to spot talent for development and according to Walters they have not been disappointed.
"The thing that is really good about what we are seeing now is that for the first time we are seeing so many players in the Under-17 age group who combine good ability and size. A number of them are over six feet tall and are quite good," said Walters, who is in the process of narrowing down a squad to intensify preparations for the Under-17 World Cup qualifiers.
What has happened to us over the years is that we have selected players who had the ability but lacked the physical presence and now it appears that is about to change.
This talent he said is almost evenly distributed among the four confederations.
DIFFICULT TASK
"It is very difficult to select a squad such as this as the difference between the players is not all that great. Once these teams would have been dominated by the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) but it appears as if that will no longer be the case. It seems now to be evenly distributed between the Confederations," he said.
As for the World Cup qualifications, Jamaica will host Zone B of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) playoffs from August 11-17 in the preliminary stages. In that group are Antigua, the Dominican Republic and Grenada.
From this group the winners will advance to play the winner of another group involving Haiti. The winner of the match-up involving the two group winners will then advance to the CONCACAF playoffs in Canada or Costa Rica in about March or April 2005.
CAMP
"We are supposed to start camp in July as soon as the holidays begin," Walters said of the team's final preparations.
"We are also seeking some games overseas, possibly against Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago," he added.
Walters is in no doubt that he will get these games as according to him, he has been getting a lot of support from the Jamaica Football Federation president Crenston Boxhill.
"I should tell you that one of the reasons why this programme has been so intensive this time around is because of the insistence of the president. He insisted he did not want a one-shot thing.
"There is constant dialogue between the president and myself which is a situation that has never happened before," Walters added.
