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Tough task ahead for Jamaica U-20 Young Reggae Boyz Team

published: Sunday | December 10, 2006

Having got the better of their Caribbean counter-parts, Trinidad's Soca warriors, Jamaica's Under-20 Reggae Boyz will now take aim to tackle the final obstacle standing between themselves and a berth in the 2007 Youth World Cup, the final round of the CONCACAF Under-20 tournament.

Jamaica's 2-1 triumph on aggregate over Trinidad and Tobago has now seen them book their spot in Group B of the final round alongside, St. Kitts and Nevis, Costa Rica and hosts Mexico in Culiac?n, Sinaloa in February.

Only one team will progress from the group to join the winners of Group A, which sees Panama, Guatemala, Haiti and the United States competing for that spot.

No easy task

The young Boyz will now face the toughest part of their journey. Costa Rica and host Mexico will prove to be formidable opponents and progression from that final round will be no easy task. The Mexican teams have always proven to be too good for several Jamaican teams at various levels of football.

Most recently, it was the Mexican women's team that prevented Jamaica's Reggae Girlz from advancing any further in their bid for a place in the 2007 women's World Cup in China and being at home will be very hard to stop. A fact that is already a concern for Jamaica's National Under-20 assistant coach Desmond Smith.

The third team in the group, St Kitts and Nevis, topped their play-off in comfortable fashion to see their team through to the final round.

" The next round will see us playing a lot of high quality nations. Mexico and Costa Rica are always going to be tough. They are some of the region's top teams," Smith explained. "They always have some quality players. We haven't seen their squads but we will just have to take it one day at a time. However, when I look at our quality I think that we have as good a shot as any of advancing from the group and the good thing is that we have time to prepare."

The coach believes that in addition to hard work a good amount of practice games will also be important for the team's success. Between the previous round and the play-offs against Trinidad and Tobago the team had only managed to secure two practice games.