As Jamaica's Reggae Boyz, stacked with as many as seven local-based players on the pitch in the second half, struggled with a youthful, understrength Trinidad and Tobago team at 'The Office' last Wednesday night, there was a feeling of unease about the team's preparedness for the semi-final phase of the 2010 CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers slated for August to November this year.

Stage Two of the qualifying series starts in mid-June and for all intents and purposes, Jamaica should easily dispose of either The Bahamas or the British Virgin Islands on their two-leg, home-and-away series on June 14/15 and June 21.

The Boyz's prospective opponents for Group Two in Stage Three (the four-team semi-final round, from which two teams advance to the final round) are perennial qualifiers Mexico, along with Canada and Honduras.

But as Jamaica toiled on Wednesday night, what with technical director Rene Simoes tinkering with the local talent pool at his disposal, Mexico were beating a very strong Ghana side 2-1 at Fulham's Craven Cottage in London.

The Mexicans got their goals from Carlos Salcido and Pavel Pardo. Chelsea's Michael Essien had given Ghana the lead.

Also, David Suazo, the Inter Milan player, who I consider the best forward in the region, was leading Honduras to a 2-1 victory over Col****ia at Lockhart Stadium in Florida, USA.

Canada were also in action, going down 0-2 to host Estonia at A LeCoq Arena in Tallinn. I humbly submit that Ghana, Col****ia and Estonia were far stronger than the Trinidad and Tobago team that turned up at 'The Office'.

To the best of my recollection, Velibor 'Bora' Milutinovic was taken to task last year for employing the obligatory screening of local-based players by any new national coach. At the end of a four-nation Asian tour on July 3, 2007, the Serbian coach said he was finished with phase one of his plan to get the Reggae Boyz to South Africa 2010, and would start integrating the overseas-based professionals as the core group going forward with the few local-based players identified.
Unfortunately, there were no more friendly games for Bora to kick off the second phase of his plan.

What has happened since is now history. In November, Captain Horace Burrell regained control of the JFF and Bora was promptly dismissed.

Now nine months later, and a full 10 weeks to the start of the World Cup qualifying campaign, 'Phase one' or the wholesale screening of local-based players continues.

Happily, from now on we should be able to avoid that kind of drastic changeover in leadership at such a delicate stage in the preparation for a World Cup campaign. I say that because the JFF has now aligned the every-four-year Voting Congress with the FIFA World Cup calendar.

With so much emphasis placed on qualifying for the World Cup Finals, this newspaper has been arguing for such a change ever since Captain Burrell was ousted from the presidency in 2003.
That move gave Crenston Boxhill and his team very little time to chart their course because the season was well underway.

The truth is that we should not fault Simoes for screening players. After all, I am sure no one wants a repeat of August 18, 2004 when the US snatched a late equaliser (1-1) against the Boyz at the National Stadium in a World Cup qualifier, with then head coach Sebastiao Lazaroni revealing that he "did not know the players", and was therefore unsure about the requisite substitutions. That 88th-minute strike and two-point loss might have been what cost us a place in the final round of qualifying, and possibly a place in the 2006 World Cup Finals in Germany.

A lot of people might not want to accept it, but the reality is that there are not many more than a handful of local-based players at this time, who are really ready for international football outside of the Caribbean.

And that is why I was disappointed with the Reggae Boyz squad on Wednesday night. There were too many players who are clearly not yet ready for the big stage on the field at the same time.

I couldn't help but liken Wednesday's experience with the fiasco involving our Olympic (Under-23) qualifying campaign last year. We got knocked out by The Bahamas and Haiti in that French-speaking country, after sending the core of the Under-20 team, which won a surprise silver medal at the PanAm Games in Brazil, to the older Olympic qualifying tournament.

In the euphoria of that historic PanAm Games performance, everybody seemed to have forgotten that the same set of players failed to qualify for their Under-20 World Cup earlier in the year.
Similarly, because the Boyz performed creditably on their recent three-week training camp in Brazil, all of 10 of them were listed on the 20-man Reggae Boyz squad on Wednesday night.

It might have been a surprise to coach Simoes that the standard dropped so badly in the second half when he introduced so many of these players, but I certainly was not surprised. I have seen it too often, both here and abroad, under Simoes in his first stint, Lazaroni, Clovis de Oliveira, Carl Brown, Wendell Downswell and Bora.