PUEBLA, Mexico — The Jamaican camp is left with a lot of introspection and soul searching following their demoralising 0-4 defeat to Panama on Saturday, a result which left them with the daunting task of facing regional powerhouse Mexico for a spot in the FIFA World Cup.

Jamaica’s Under-20s, with three points, finished second in Group C to Panama but qualified for the quarter-finals where they will play host Mexico on Wednesday night, with the winner of that contest advancing to the FIFA World Cup in Turkey between June 21 and July 13.

Having beaten Puerto Rico 4-1 last Tuesday, Jamaica met Panama in a top-of-the-table clash but succumbed to goals by Amet Ramirez (44th, 57th), Romario Piggott (79th) and Jairo Jimeniz, who played in the last FIFA World Cup in Colombia in 2011, completed the rout in the 84th minute.

Jamaica’s Brazilian coach Luciano Gama was clearly disappointed and searched for words to describe his team’s pathetic display.

“I can’t say that anything worked… we had our game plan and we held the game until the end of the first half… we gave up a goal in the 45th minute.

“After that the team lost a little bit of balance but we wanted to win the game anyway and then conceded a lot of opportunities for counter-attacks and they used those opportunities and scored the goals,” Gama explained.

“It is hard when you lose a game like that where nothing worked — technically, tactically and physically. It is difficult to bring the team together,” he added.

With the quarter-final pairings decided, Jamaica will play Mexico; Panama take on El Salvador; the USA play Canada and Costa Rica tackle Cuba, with the four winners to qualify for the FIFA World Cup later this year.

Jamaica will have three days to refocus and get back on track before they enter the lion’s den, with approximately 50,000 screaming home fans expected to be cheering on the host nation.

“We gonna start work with them today (yesterday) and let them know that anything is possible in football. We will start a game with Mexico which will be very, very hard because they have a good team, but we start 0-0 and nobody has that advantage,” he added.

“It was a difficult game with the senior team here in Azteca as they showed that nothing is impossible,” said the Brazilian.

As to how the players have reacted following the crushing defeat, Gama said he didn’t speak with them after the game but has left them to do some soul searching before he addresses.

“We didn’t talk to them yesterday (Saturday)… to leave them thinking about the game and put their heads in place again. We gonna talk to them before practice today (yesterday) and we will see how the group responds,” said Gama.

“We gonna work a lot in the next two, three days to get the morale up again and show them that anything is possible,” he reiterated.