Reggae Boyz senior team Head Coach Heimir Hallgrimsson says he will be using upcoming matches against Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, and Guatemala to assess players for this year’s 17th staging of the Concacaf Gold Cup.

The Jamaicans are set to face Caribbean rivals Trinidad and Tobago in two international friendlies, on March 11 at the Montego Bay Sports Complex, and again on March 14 at the National Stadium.

Then the Jamaicans are down to tackle Mexico in Group A of the Concacaf Nations League in Mexico City on March 26, before a friendly against Guatemala in New York, United States on April 15.

“The upcoming month is big. We have two games here in Jamaica against Trinidad and Tobago, and in that match probably the bulk of the squad will again be players playing here domestically. Then we have Mexico away in Mexico City, and we will do the preparation here in Jamaica, and that will be good to bring the players over here to connect them with the people and to connect the people with the players as well,” Hallgrimsson said during a live streaming of the revealing of the national teams’ adidas kit on Tuesday.

“And then on the 15th of April, we have a friendly against Guatemala in New York, and I will have now played four games to see as many players as possible so we can have the squad to go into the Gold Cup in the summer. So we will have greater knowledge on the depth and quality of the squad when this month ends,” the Icelandic coach added.

The 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup, the biennial international men’s football championship of the North, Central American, and Caribbean regions, is to take place from June 24 to July 16. The final is set for SoFi Stadium in California, United States.

Hallgrimsson noted that building team chemistry off the field will be vital.

“The thing for us as coaches is not only about the performance on the pitch, which is where you will decide who should play or not. We will have the players in a camp so we can see how they are interacting; how good team players they are; how well they adapt to our way of working and our working environment.

“And so seeing the players in two, three, or four days of preparation before the camp would be huge for us; for me, that is even more important than what they do in these 90 minutes, which is when you will judge these players,” he explained.

Hallgrimsson said friendly matches against world champions Argentina and Cameroon late last year, after he took charge of the team, laid the groundwork for broader plans.

“We started with a camp against Argentina with two days of preparations before we played them. As you may know, they won the World Cup, so it was an ideal first match for a new coach with only two days to prepare. I think it was a good thing for us. It has shown us a lot of things, good and bad, and we have a lot of video clips from that match that we will use from now on to help us improve.

“So it was a good start even though we lost the match, and a pretty good performance for 85 minutes until [Lionel] Messi decided to finish the game off.

“Then we had a friendly game against Cameroon in Cameroon with the bulk of the squad playing here domestically and again against a World Cup nation, and I thought it was a pretty good performance, and it was pleasing to me to see a different group of players performing as well as they did,” he said.