Get ready to work

BE READY to deliver everything.

That’s the message for players in the Reggae Boyz squad down to battle Trinidad and Tobago’s Soca Warriors in friendlies at Montego Bay Sports Complex on Thursday and at Arnett Gardens’ Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex on Sunday.

The urging of Jamaica Football Federation’s (JFF) Technical Committee head, Rudolph Speid, relates to the opportunity of becoming a permanent member of the Reggae Boyz player pool for, among others, big upcoming competitions such as World Cup Qualifying and the Concacaf Gold Cup.

“My message is, players, make sure when you get the opportunity you’re at 100 per cent, in tip-top condition and ready for work. No excuse,” he said.

Stephen McClaren, head coach of the Reggae Boyz, stated his interest in recruiting upon naming a 28-man squad for the matches.

“What I’m hoping for is similar to what happened the last time. Three players emerged from that camp – Richard King, Kaheim Dixon, and Shaquan Davis – and became regular players in our squad. That was great to see, and that’s the incentive for everyone involved in this campaign,” McClaren said.

The incentives don’t stop there, because playing for the national team brings a bigger window of opportunity for exposure to professional contracts.

That in itself is a catch-22 for the national set-up given that the daily ask of a professional setting affords day-to-day preparation for the international setting. And for local players, it’s also more money, big money.

“They all say they want to go overseas, but a lot of them don’t put in the work,” Speid surmised, noting that football talent is not short in Jamaica.

“Thirty per cent of persons playing in the England professional leagues are from the Caribbean; people don’t realise that. Twenty-one per cent are actually from Jamaica, and many are our heritage players, they originate from here, through Windrush or whatever,” he analysed. “When it comes to athletics, it actually rises to 75 per cent.

“So the talent is here, we just need to harness it. One day we’re going to get it right and it will be a different Jamaica after that,” he said.

“I’ve seen our players do things that players overseas, even in the EPL (English Premier League), can’t do.

“The problem is players don’t want to understand what people overseas look for because they have choices.”

Selections of the sort have not only impacted their overseas club opportunities, but with the national team as well.

Many players from the English leagues who weren’t born in Jamaica are regular members of the national set-up.

Sharing responsibility, Speid admits, is part of the professional game, an asset in places with football culture that could aid change, with adaptation, locally.

“If you’re in a total professional setting, if you do anything that doesn’t make you perform at 100 per cent, it’s not just the coach who is going to call you out, all the players are going to call you out. That doesn’t exist in our society because we are the type of laid-back people, we don’t business with a man, we’re not going to snitch,” he said.

“If a player in a professional setting knows that you’re a slacker and you don’t want to do the work that you’re supposed to, he’s going to call you out. Each person in a professional team is their own brother’s keeper. So it forces players to stay at a level.”

Along with his technical role at the JFF, Speid has a peculiar combination as head of Cavalier Soccer Club, the Concacaf Caribbean Cup Club and Jamaica Premier League champions. They rank among local clubs having a high success rate of securing overseas professional transfers.

Highlighting drawbacks, he shared: “Some of them (players), how they carry themselves, even their hairstyle; they argue with refs, so people see them on TV arguing with refs … people see it and will say ‘that didn’t look good’; the ref made a call and they keep arguing with the ref’. They don’t like these things,” Speid said. “So it’s some little things that are causing their career and they’re not realising, it’s not big things.

“Some local players, when they’re on display, they don’t come at 100 per cent either, they think they can get by with an 80 or 75 per cent readiness to play in terms of even fitness, rest, food, everything, they come at 75 per cent because they can get away with it in Jamaica, but the mistake that they’re making is it’s not Jamaicans who want them overseas.”

Speid says as coaches they try to impress these things upon players, but there is a general feeling of entitlement that causes them to undersell themselves.

“…Because they have an option, or they’d want to use the threat of leaving your club to go to another, especially if it’s a good player, so a lot of them just take it (option) instead of conforming,” he reasoned.

“But they’re only hurting themselves.”

The fix seems deep-rooted, even for many who have got a break to join the professional ranks.

“When they go overseas, they always know that they can come back home. That’s the biggest problem,” he said.

“It is not an attitude thing. It’s like, if an African go overseas he’ll tell you that he’s not going back, so he’s going to do anything to stay. In Jamaica, we just welcome you back and you’re good to go. And that’s how we are as a people, we’re laid back,” Speid reasoned. “He knows that if he comes back he won’t starve, he’ll get food, he’s going to get a club to play for.

“But there are certain players who say ‘mi nah go back enuh’, and they will make it.”

Cementing a place in the national set-up calls for a similar commitment. There’s no excuse. Be ready for work, 100 per cent.

audley.boyd@gleanerjm.com