Whitmore

With the FIFA World Cup qualifiers just a little over a month away it has become quite alarming that Jamaica's Reggae Boyz seem yet to have decided on a first team squad.

While it is not unusual for any team preparing to qualify for a World Cup to be taking a look at several players, at this point in the campaign, perhaps even for multiple positions, one would not expect that with the team hosting Guatemala on June 8 there would be so many wholesale changes being made.

Just recently three new players Chris Humphrey of Motherwell, Watford defender Adrian Mariappa and 31-year-old defender Nyron Nosworthy, who also plies his trade for Watford, have been called up to the squad. The players are expected to feature against Guyana when the team next takes the field while

they may be quality players, such constant shifting, chopping and changing ahead of a major tournament can be a major hurdle for a team looking to build team chemistry. Although it is not the only factor that goes towards a team's success, few could argue that it is not one of the major ones. In the 1998 campaign, Jamaica's only successful attempt to qualify for the World Cup, many believe chemistry was a key ingredient in their historic achievement.

qualification

Surely, one must appreciate that national coach Theodore Whitmore will want to see as much talent as possible, and with players like Marlon King, Jermaine Johnson, Jamal Campbell-Ryce and Omar Daley still on the fringes, he must be having somewhat of a selection headache. However, at some point the door must be closed as the team settles down for a difficult but possible qualification for the 2014 World Cup.

Still Whitmore cannot be blamed entirely as the the team was forced to sit out a three-month period last year, following the suspension of JFF boss captain Horace Burrell by FIFA, in the fallout of the infamous cash-for-votes scandal. During this period several of the teams around the region played quite a few games and the effects of this lull may yet prove costly. Of course, the unavailability of several players for these friendlies based on the fact that the matches fall outside of the FIFA friendly international dates has also been a problem.

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