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Howard Walker, Observer writer
Friday, August 17, 2007


Despite Jamaica plummeting down the FIFA world rankings, technical director Velibor 'Bora' Milutinovic
is not perturbed and believes the Reggae Boyz are on course for better things. Said Milutinovic:
"The position we carry is not so important. The only thing that is important is for qualification."

According to the Serbian-born coach, "the ranking is important after the qualification games, today, no,"
he told the Observer. "After the qualification you check the ranking again. For me it is important to see
the players now," he said.

Jamaica have dropped 36 places since January to be No 93 on the FIFA list - just two spots above their
lowest-ever ranking of 95 way back in 1994. In 1993 when FIFA introduced the ranking system,
the Regae Boyz were rated at 80, with their average position being 52 since then.

In August 1998, the Reggae Boyz achieved their highest ranking ever, No 27, following the World Cup
Finals in France.

Jamaica, under its new technical director, had a poor tour of Asia in June where they lost 1-2 against
Indonesia, 0-3 to Vietnam, and 1-8 against Iran. They defeated Malaysia 2-0 to complete the four-match
tour which featured only local-based players.

Jamaica are now the fourth-ranked team in the Caribbean behind Trinidad & Tobago (65), Cuba (90)
and Haiti (92), and 11th in the CONCACAF (Confederation of Central, North American and the
Caribbean) region.

But Milutinovic is not fazed by all this and said he would continue with the trial period with the hope
of unearthing local talent capable of performing on the international stage.
"I think we have some
very good players to make a competitive team. The young players need to play in night games.
"The travelling can be very hard, but they try very hard and I will decide what to do in the future.
who plays with who," said Milutinovic.

The technical director's next assignment will be to prepare the Olympic team for their upcoming
qualifiers set to start in September. "We will be concentrating on Olympic qualification in September.
We need to play some games to be ready for our first game. I don't know exactly the schedule, but
we need to play some games," the coach noted.

Jamaica is drawn in Group B alongside host Aruba, Antigua & Barbuda and Barbados for the Caribbean
qualification. The young Reggae Boyz will play a game against Antigua & Barbuda on September 9
before facing Barbados and Aruba on the 11th and 13th respectively.