LAST SHOT

It shall be now or never for the Reggae Boyz, when they take their final kick at qualifying for this summer’s FIFA Men’s World Cup against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today. Match time is 4 p.m.

Mexico’s Akron Stadium in Zapopan, Guadalajara, will host the winner-takes-all Intercontinental final, which ultimately rewards a spot in the 48-nation global championship to be hosted jointly by Concacaf nations the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

“We know what we have to do, and we are going to do our best,” Rudolph Speid, head coach of Jamaica’s team, said at last evening’s press conference.

“ ... We know that the prize is the World Cup, and that is what we are aiming for.”

Both countries missed out on automatic qualification – Jamaica (11 points) finishing second, one point behind Curaçao in Concacaf after winning three, drawing two and tying one of their six games; and DRC also placing second, two points behind Senegal after winning seven, losing two and drawing one of 10 matches in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Group B qualifiers.

To get to this stage, both teams had to earn their spot in the play-offs.

The Reggae Boyz eliminated Oceania’s New Caledonia 1-0 in the semi-finals last Thursday as Bailey-Tye Cadamarteri scored at the 20th minute.

Their opponents beat Cameroon 1-0 in the CAF semi-finals, before eliminating Nigeria, on penalties, to set up this final.

“We’re really fired up,” said Sebastien Desabre, DRC’s head coach. “We’re still on course to meet our main objective. That’s the goal we set ourselves when I took this job three and a half years ago. This final will be our 13th match since our qualifying campaign began.”

Jamaica and the DRC have never met in international competition, and both teams have made it to the FIFA Men’s World Cup once – the Reggae Boyz in 1998, when the Finals were held in France, and DRC at the 1974 tournament in Germany.

In terms of a yardstick, recent matches by both teams against the same opponent, Bermuda, might provide some sort of an indicator. The DRC registered a 2-0 win in a friendly international on Wednesday, while Jamaica blanked the same opponent 4-0 in home-and-away, final-round World Cup matches.

EXPECTATIONS LOW

Football matchups, however, don’t read like a book, and while the result could spring hope, proof lies in what takes place on the playing field on the day.

Expectations are not as strong for the Reggae Boyz (70th) to win as when they were challenging lowly ranked, average Caribbean opponents Curaçao (ranked 81st), Trinidad and Tobago (97th) and Bermuda (169th) in Concacaf’s Group B elimination phase.

That quest was riddled with inconsistent play and selections that were widely believed to have hampered the Reggae Boyz’s fluidity.

For their last game against New Caledonia, three new players were added to the Jamaica team.

Former Reggae Boyz head coach Steve McClaren walked away at the end of the group qualifications after the team’s failure to gain an automatic spot.

Speid, the Jamaica Football Federation’s technical committee chairman, who was brought into the team’s coaching unit for the last home qualifier against Curaçao nearly three and a half months ago, was then appointed Jamaica’s head coach, with Miguel Coley as his assistant.

Coley previously served as the Reggae Boyz’s assistant coach to German Winfried Schäfer.

The DRC (48th) are favoured for having dismissed tougher opponents, with 26th-ranked Nigeria qualifying for the World Cup on six occasions, and Cameroon, ranked 45th, eight times.

However, football is not played on paper and both teams will feel they have an equal opportunity of making the World Cup.

“They have beaten some good teams along the way. But as you know, if ranking and strength of teams gave you wins, then none of us would be here,” Speid declared. “The game has to be played and that’s what we are looking forward to.”

Whoever wins this game will advance to World Cup 2026 Group K with South America’s Colombia, and UEFA members Portugal and Uzbekistan.

audley.boyd@gleanerjm.com