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Letter to Coach “Tappa” Whitmore
Mr. Theodore Whitmore
Technical Director, Jamaica National Senior TEAM
C/0 Jamaica Football Federation
20 St. Lucia Crescent
Kingston 5
Jamaica
Dear Mr. Theodore Whitmore,
Congratulations to you and your Reggae Boyz on the latest win over Trinidad and Tobago.
Unfortunately, I have to point out that Trinidad and Tobago is not in the FIFA top rated 32 teams.
I know…there is the automatic turning on of our “tune out switch” when someone offers praise and immediately thereafter follows with the “but for...”. Let me therefore frame my reason for so doing. I believe all Jamaicans are convinced our football team can perform at much higher levels. I certainly do. Football when played as TEAM game can have a team of ordinary players consistently producing extra-ordinary results. I am convinced that the talent of the players I have observed on our playfields as I travel the island, those I see via my television set and those I observe when our Reggae Boyz are on the field suggest that with right attitude and greater application of common sense would have our players producing ‘good’ TEAM football. I dare say all fans of the Reggae Boyz crave seeing the team play attractive, sensible, efficient football. We carve good football.
Our individual Reggae Boyz most often show optimum effort when representing our country and when playing under your tutelage. That is good.
Unfortunately too often during the course of play these same players do not appear to apply common sense as among other things TEAM seem to be, during often long agonizing periods of play, not a part of our players’ consciousness.
There must be a reason why all those teams in the top 32 on the FIFA ranking chart put on the field players who operate in a manner that even to the casual observer shows an underlining adherence to the principle of working together as TEAM. The ball may be in one section of the field yet the entire on field Xl seem constantly to be adjusting in support of actual resulting actions or for “what if” scenarios. Our Reggae Boyz team often performs unlike those teams.
There are usually only a few short periods during play when one of the players on those top teams appears to the onlooker to be not thinking of or engaged in working for TEAM.
I know it cannot be your task only to have our players think and act for TEAM as do those top ranked team players. That responsibility must also be shared by each member of the group you select.
Yet these questions come to mind - Why is it each of our players is not taking that responsible position of always working for the team? Surely it cannot be that ‘team first’ is not a part of each player’s consciousness? Is it not more rewarding to have the TEAM win matches and advance further in competitions that for the individual player to elicit a few “ooohs” and “aaahs” and then never be seen for the rest of the tournament?
I am sure as you gathered experience watching and playing football that there are some players who stood out as consummate team players. Among those that that come to my mind as I watched and gathered my experience as student of the game are Pele and Socrates of Brazil, Allan “Skill” Cole of Boys Town and Jamaica, Peter “Dove” Marsden of Santos and Jamaica and you, our beloved “Tappa” of Seba United and Jamaica, Cesc Fabregas of Arsenal and Spain, Xavi and Andr