2010 Reggae Boyz Post World Cup Eliminations Analysis

And so we prayed for evil to befall the Honduran team and for the Gods to listen to the Mexicans prayer for a victory over Honduras; But the Mexicans couldnt even help themselves and our prayers were defeated by the Gods of Honduras who forced an own goal againt the Mexican team and giving Honduras group honors. In short, Honduras preyed on Mexico for a 1-0 victory and guaranteed themselves a place in the Final Group of Six. Mexico with their 10 points were already half way home leading by a significantly greated goal difference over Jamaica. So despite the Reggae Boyz carving out an emphatic 3-0 victory over Canada...the die had already been cast; and the people left the National Stadium befuddled,bemused and subdued in their anger...wondering what could have been if only... as the Reggae Boyz won the game but lost the war. All because of two critical decisions made by the president of the Jamaica Football federation Captain Horace Burrell. Burrell in vindictive haste to clean out the Boxhill regime swept out the baby with the bath water. Burrell's decision to unceremoniously dump the 5 times World Cup coach and technical director Serbian-born Bora Milotinovic for what he termed 'non-performance' technically has proved to be the achillles heel in the Burrell led administration design. Bora's short stint had revealed the lack of World Cup player material that was present in the national local leagues and the obvious need to build the National team on the base of the experienced overseas based professional players. The results of the matches played by Bora's men has affirmed this reality. EVERYBODY in Jamaica knew that. All except professor Rene Simoes. The second critical error commited by the Burrell regime was that of bringing back Rene Simoes at the time that he did, at a time when the overseas-based professionals were duly available for national selection. The Burrell-Simoes regime severely ruptured the local talent search program initiated by Milotinovic and reversed the process to square one when Simoes rejected Jamaica's best overseas talent, developed in the [8] years of his absence, in favour of using young local untested players in the critical first round of matches. His refusal to employ the likes of Marlon King, Campbell-Ryce, etc. and subsequent attempt to reconstruct Jamaica's national team on the base of local players was directly contrary to the state of development local football had reached. Simoes insistence of trying to compress the four year methodology used during the 1998 Journey to France into a 8 month campaign was always fraught with much danger from the go. The dangers have been translated into failure and the responsibility for this absurd outcome must fall squarely on the shoulders of the Maximum Leader Captain Horace Burrell. Burrell's show of arrogance while dismissing Bora Milotinovic and Simoes wreckless endeavors with the nation's natural football resources is tantamount to treachery. The firing of Simoes and the hiring of John Barnes and in between there lies Theodore Tappa Whitmore, only serve to confuse and confound the often over critical but naive observers and lovers of the 'beautiful game'.

The decision to axe Bora and the re-hiring of Rene Simoes has proven to be the 'dagger in the heart' and the down fall of the Reggae Boyz 2010 South Africa World Cup campaign.