PANAMA CITY, Panama — Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz, while not getting three points needed to lift their World Cup mission from the throes of disaster, still can take heart from a decent rendition against host Panama on Friday night.
The 0-0 score, it can be argued, is a fair one — but clearly not the desired outcome for any of the teams. They both needed a win to advance their cause as the teams lingering in the drop zone of the hexagonal play-offs.In a breakdown of how the Jamaicans performed on a rainy Panama City night, their grades will be mixed from the defence to the midfield and offence. The mark is from 0-10.DEFENCEClearly, the department that saved the Reggae Boyz from sure defeat to a Panama team that was bent on persevering home turf pride. In executing the 3-5-2 formation, drifting away from the 4-4-2, debutant central defender and Leicester City captain Wes Morgan was the consummate professional. He demonstrated throughout the match a class act who reads the game well, plus his timely tackles were clean. He, no doubt, helped to lift the game of fellow debutant, the left-sided Reading man, Shaun Cummings. Jermaine Taylor and Lloyd Doyley, who partnered Morgan in the three-prong defence, fed off his high-quality delivery. With Adrian Mariappa in the reckoning for Tuesday’s match against Costa Rica, it would be interesting to see what coach Winfried Schafer will do. Donovan Ricketts, when called upon, was in his element to deny the opposition. With all of the above, plus the fact that they kept a clean sheet, Jamaica’s defence gets a passing grade.— 6.5MIDFIELDFive midfielders were spread across the field with the new formation, and those playing on the flanks did more defence work than going forward, especially when Jamaica went down to 10 players, and understandably so. What was encouraging is how newcomer Shaun Cummings looked comfortable playing on both flanks, which he was forced to do when right-flanker Alvas Powell got injured in the first half. O’brian Woodbine, who came in, never shone, but he held his own and fitted into the scheme out there. Sadly, there wasn’t much feed for the strikers as those operating more inside were lacking in collective imagination. Still, the cry for a creative midfielder for the team, it seems, will go on forever. What we had was a lot of running, all running. Jobi McAnuff did well as he ran all game like a wound-up Duracel bunny, but with his purpose, to be fair. His Reading teammate, Garath McCleary, did show some good touches, but he too ran, albeit more into traffic than anything else. Rodolph Austin, the tanker in the middle, was doing his mopping-up duty, which eventually cost him in the end with two yellow cards. His replacement, Marvin Elliott, came in and played his typical game by keeping things simple, plus he broke up a couple of threatening Panamanian attacks.— 4.5OFFENCEWe didn’t score in a game we had to win. Too few shots on goal. Too few shots, period. Marlon King and Luton Shelton have contrasting playing styles, and while they gave us a couple of cute one-two plays, they never clicked as a deadly duo. The midfield may have failed them to a large extent, in terms of service, but forwards ought to be clever and resourceful operating behind enemy lines. Down to 10 men, substitute Jermaine ‘Teddy’ Johnson played as a one-man wrecking crew upfront, but he wasn’t packing the venom we know he’s capable of producing. It appeared that the counter-attacking approach was the name of our game, but it never paid dividends.— 4.0View the original article here
Decent effort, but job still undone