U-20 Reggae Girlz coach banking on players with senior team experience

Head coach of Jamaica’s Under 20 Reggae Girlz Xavier Gilbert says he will be relying on the likes of Jody Brown and Sade Adamolekun to excel for the team in the upcoming CONCACAF Women's Under 20 Championship in the Dominican Republic later this month. Brown and Adamolekun who represented the senior team at the World Cup in France last year, are part of a 35-member provisional roster which will be cut to 20 a week before the tournament.

Gilbert feels the squad has the depth to advance to the knockout stages of the competition. ‘We have some quality players there and two players who garnered experience playing at the senior level so we hope that they can bring that level of leadership and maturity to the Under-20 level. If all things go well, we should be able to advance so we’ll be ensuring we put the necessary things together and ensure that we make it out of the group,” noted Gilbert.

Gilbert also highlighted players who are not part of the pool due to injuries. “Yes we missed out on a few players, Gizelle Washington, Ebony Clarke and Shayla Smart also injured. Those are some senior players who we’ll miss. They have experience of playing at the Under-20 level the last time around. We were hoping to have their services but such is the nature of the sport. We’ll just have to do what we need to do and work with the ones that we have,” said Gilbert. 

The Under 20 Reggae Girlz are in Group "E" of the tournament and will play Canada, Guatemala and El Salvador.
The top three teams from this group will qualify for the round of 16 of the competition. The two finalists will qualify for the FIFA Women's Under 20 World Cup which will be hosted in Costa Rica and Panama in August. Jamaica's best finish at a CONCACAF Women's Under 20 Championship was fourth in 2006.