The absence of the suspended winger Leon Bailey will affect the Jamaica national senior men’s team as they seek to win the first major trophy, the Concacaf Nations League, says Head Coach Heimir Hallgrimsson as he announced the 23-man squad at the Jamaica Football Federation headquarters yesterday.
Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz will face the United States in one semi-final of the Nations League at the AT&T stadium in Arlington, Texas, next Thursday, while Panama and Mexico will meet in the other semi-final.
The winners will meet in the final at the same venue on Sunday, March 24 while the losers will meet in the third-place play-offs and Hallgrimsson said the games presented Jamaica with an opportunity to win their first continental trophy.
Jamaica, who have included teenage strikers Bailey Cadamarteri of Sheffield Wednesday and Kaheim Dixon of Arnett Gardens, will be without a number of players including Bailey and Trivante Stewart, who were suspended by the coaches after they broke curfew after Jamaica’s historic 3-2 win over Canada in their return-leg, quarter-final game in Toronto in November last year for a 4-4 aggregate to win on away goals.
Demarai Gray, who was shown a red card, and Shamari Nicholson, who was cautioned in both games against Canada, will also miss the game against the USA as well as Ethan Pinnock and Amari Bell, the latter, who underwent surgery and will be out for 11 weeks.
Bailey, who plies his trade with English Premier League club Aston Villa, and Trivante Stewart, who is on loan at Serbian Superliga club Javor from Salernitana in the Italian Serie A, were both left out of the squad “for disciplinary reasons”, Hallgrimsson said.
“We basically have a lot of agreements between the staff and the coaches and the players. But we only have only one rule, don’t leave the hotel after 10:00 pm and these players didn’t even sleep at the hotel,” said Hallgrimsson.
He told the press conference that both men has accepted the decision and said “we are finished with this, that both the players took responsibility of their actions they apologised to to us and the squad and the apology is accepted. We all do mistakes in our lives. Even the best and for all of us cases closed and we move on.”
Meanwhile expectations are high and Hallgrimsson and Assistant Coach Merron Gordon are confident that the team can beat the US in their backyard.
“First of all, it’s an absolute privilege and exciting for us to be in the top four in the Concacaf tournament, so it’s the first time for Jamaica, and this is really good for the development of our squad leading to the World Cup and 2026,” Hallgrimsson said.
He appealed to Jamaicans “living in the diaspora in the US to come and support us, all the people that can’t, please come in and show support to the players. It gives us a [push] to win a continental trophy. That will be the first one for Jamaica and doing good in this tournament will give us a lot of FIFA points that will affect the rankings, etc, so it’s a big chance for us if we do good and like I said, if we have two good performances.”
Gordon said despite Jamaica losing to the US in the Gold Cup last year, the margins were small.
“The US is a high-profile team with players playing in high-profile leagues but I think tactically we have been doing good against them especially recently…[fixing] a few finer details and we should get a positive result against them, with a little bit more killer instinct, I think we could have beat them in the Gold Cup.”
While saying Leon Bailey’s absence will put more pressure on the attacking players, Hallgrimsson appeared confident that 18-year-old Cadamarteri, who had played 19 times for Sheffield Wednesday and scored three goals, could be a positive going forward.
Meanwhile, Gordon stressed that there would be no pressure on 19-year-old Dixon who is one of three local-based players named in the squad along with Mt Pleasant FA goalkeeper Shaquan Davis and Cavalier SC’s defender Richard King.
Dixon scored Jamaica’s only goal in their two-game friendly series earlier this month against Trinidad and Tobago, in the first game which the Reggae Boyz won 1-0 before drawing the second game 0-0.
Corey Burke was recalled to the squad as well as West Ham striker Michail Antonio
