With last week’s resignation of Jamaica’s football coach, Theodore Whitmore, the Jamaica Observer last Thursday asked Jamaicans if they preferred a local or foreign coach to replace him. Officials and coaches at this year’s Insports Basic Schools’ Athletic Championship at the National Stadium offered their views.

Steve Daley

Anytime you see the match lose, them say that is the coach lose it. And anytime you see the match win, they say that is the players win it. Get the local youth dem and put dem inna one camp; dem man deh will play dem heart out. The English player dem naah play dem heart out because dem done have dem contract. Dem nah come yah come bruck dem foot or dem hand and when dem come here and damage themselves Jamaica nah teck care of dem. So meck we have a nursery camp for them like the prep school and the kindergarten schools with the footballers. If we get a local coach with some man, who want to play football for the next four years, we must do good. But when you pick up a man two weeks or three weeks before the competition we not going to do good. But the coach is not the problem; the player dem a di problem,”

Michael Feurtado

I think that you have local coaches here who have the potential to do a good job. But what the coaches need to do, for example, Whitmore play too much of a defensive game. I think the coaches need to play a more offensive game. In the Mexico match you only had one forward. You can’t have one forward; back in high school we use to have a 4-2-4 formation, so Jamaica need to go on the offensive. We need to have more forwards, especially when you are playing in the ‘Office’ at home. So you need a local coach to have that kind of design on the international level. They could try an international coach, but right now I think they should go for a local coach who has the potential.

Valery Murphy

We need some guys who actually want to play. It’s like we don’t even have forwards. We don’t have a fighting forward. We need players who are hungry. We are entering a World Cup; we need to be hungry like in 1998 when we played and fight to go to that level. In order for Jamaica to go to a World Cup we have to fight for it. And I think we need a local coach. A local coach knows the players and the players will be used to them. We need to use our brains and play football, not only our feet. Brains … that’s all we need.

Nicolos Brown

My best bet right now is to go back for Rene Simoes. He was the best coach who got us to where we need to go. Without Rene Simoes we are not going to go anywhere. It’s as simple as that. Local coaches have so many things to do, so my best bet is to go international and done. The players, some of them, need to be taken and thrown into Riverton City dump and we find fresh persons to play.

Rowena Graham

I am for the foreign-based coach because the local-based coaches are too sentimentally attached to the local-based teams. The foreign based coaches will come and they have no form of attachment to the players; they will be able to pick a team that is based upon strictly professional standards and who can play tactics. The foreign-based coaches can also go out there and look for the persons with raw talent, who can get a game, hold the ball, and maintain the 90 minutes or more. The players that we have after the first 30 minutes dem tired. I think the side is a good side but too many England-based players are on it and they are not out here to get the feel of the sun, the heat to get out the full 90 minutes of the game. If they want to use England-based players they need to have an off camp, no two weeks thing … three months, where they can come and get used to the climate here, and get used to how the other players play ball. They are out on the field and they don’t even look like a team.

Richard Grant

I think the international coach would command more respect than the local coach and it would also be good seeing that we are not only looking for local players but international players to represent the side. I think the international coach will command more respect from the players. I don’t see where the local coaches have been commanding the respect from the players. Right throughout the world you see clubs employ overseas coaches. The football side itself; just like how we have our youngsters coming up we can use our local players. We don’t have to use the international players dem. So I think we should employ an international coach but use local players.

Sean Bryan

We need a local-based coach and more local-based players. We have a lot of players … why do we have the premier league? Why do we have all these football competitions in schools?

The local-based coach understands the players more. And I know we can do better with local-based players and a local-based coach. When it come on to training and you have a foreign-based coach, you have better response, better training, etc. When you have an international coach, people won’t give you any sponsors. If you want sponsors from Jamaicans, get a local-based coach. We need to scrap the whole team and start over from scratch if we want to reach somewhere.

Ronald Gordon

I say local-based coaches all the way. To me, the international coaches don’t know the type of football that we play here. And another thing, the local players are not even playing on the team and I don’t know why they are dealing with the local players this way. I don’t think of an international coach; I think of a local coach. I think we should try to build our own thing.