LOS ANGELES, California:

WINNING will be key when Jamaica tackle Costa Rica in their next CONCACAF Gold Cup encounter, if they are to clear a path to the quarter-final stage of the competition.

"We have to sit and see where we went wrong and approach this Costa Rica game looking to see what we can get out of it," head coach, Theodore Whitmore, admitted after their opening game 1-0 loss to Canada at the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles on Friday.

"We can't depend on anyone. We have to depend on ourselves and see where we go from here," Whitmore admitted.

Ali Gerba scored against the run of play in the 75th minute to hand Canada a precious win in the Group A contest.

Both teams created good openings but Jamaica had the lion's share and more excellent chances to score, particularly a one-on-one that Ricardo Fuller, playing below his best form, hit against the Canadian goalie.

Four teams are contesting the group and the top two are certain to advance to the second round, following round-robin preliminary action.

Whitmore said the Reggae Boyz played below par.

"It's a very disappointing result. We didn't play well," he said. "I don't think the team did well in the first half and when we came out in the second half we got our chances and we didn't put them away.

"I don't think our senior players, who we were looking forward to, turned up today," he added. "They didn't give us what we were looking for. That's part of football, we just have to look and see where we went wrong and move on."

displeasure

Commenting on the areas of the team's play that brought him displeasure, Whitmore said: "Our defensive aspect, our attacking aspect, overall as a team, from back to front. I think we have more that we could've offered but as I said it's football, we just have to move on."

Continuing, Whitmore added: "It could be a wake-up call because I didn't see the aggression from our team. When you looked at a Rodolph Austin this afternoon, I don't think Rodolph was on top of his game."

Austin was pulled because of hamstring problems and replaced with Oneil Thompson, who made a pivotal turnover that Canada utilised as it caught the Jamaicans in transition to counter and score.

After taking a pass off Claude Davis near the centre circle, Thompson, ahead of his Canadian opponent, turned back the play by flicking the ball over the head of his opponent. He was stripped, the ball was fed wide to Mike Klukowski and from midway the half on the left flank, he sent a deep cross to the back post, where Gerba drifted off a retreating Davis to hit a one-time effort across Donovan Ricketts into the far post.

"When we gave up that goal that changed the whole picture of the game, where we were forced to take out Claude Davis, which we didn't want to, as we were trying to get the equaliser."

Before Davis' substitution, actually right after the goal was scored, Jamaica pulled their most dangerous player on the night, midfielder Jermaine Johnson, who was dribbling the Canadian defence at will.

gardner's effort

A more suitable substitution might have been captain Ricardo Gardner, who played the full 90 minutes despite being out of action for over two months due to an injury.

Asked about the changes, Whitmore explained that the effort of Gardner influenced his decision.

"He was one of them out there who was putting in some work," the coach noted of Gardner, who had admitted being below 100 per cent before the game and was clearly inhibited by the lack of match practice, as he was not his usually sharp self.

Continuing, he added that Johnson was taken out of the game due to conditioning.

"Jermaine Johnson hadn't played for a while and you could see at times again, he showed a bit of tiredness."

Johnson went close to scoring twice, while defender Damion Stewart and strikers Luton Shelton and Ricardo Fuller also had decent opportunities to score.

Fuller had the best opening at the 65th minute of the second half, but his effort in a one-on-one with 'keeper Greg Sutton was blocked.

Gerba later scored and Whitmore sensibly pulled out central defender Claude Davis and replaced him with striker Omar Cummings, as Jamaica chased the game.

Canada's coach Stephen Hart, who is Trinidadian, said he knew the game would be difficult.

"I actually told the players when I saw the line-up that this was going to be a great game ... as they are very evenly matched teams," he said. "I felt Jamaica had the team they would probably liked to have had, minus King (Marlon), but other than that they had a nice team out there. We knew it was going to be close.

"Of course, I'm happy with the result," Hart added. "I felt this game was going to be a really hard game for us. I wanted to get some kind of result out of it, mainly for confidence."

He called their defending of strikers Fuller and Shelton key to the victory.

"We wanted to concentrate on that Fuller-Shelton combination. That put a lot of teams in trouble. We actually practised to stop that and I thought the back four for Canada, we did really well in doing that."

Hart further admitted that while they had good chances to score, their goal came with Jamaica having the momentum.

Assessing the goal, on which Gerba sneaked up unmarked on the far side to tuck away a cross one-time into the far post, Hart thought Jamaica erred in allowing Klukowski to make the square, when he could have been shut down.

trouble

"I thought the defender was in a good position, but as soon as he took his eyes off Gerba pulled a little wide. I think the worst part of the defending was that they didn't stop the cross from coming in. Once the cross comes in you're going to be in trouble."

As he watched the all-Central America showdown in the interview area away from the pitch, Hart said all is not lost for the Boyz.

"I think the Jamaica team is a very good team and these two teams (Costa Rica and El Salvador) are going to struggle to beat them."

The Salvadorans scored three minutes from time to win the high-energy battle 2-1, courtesy of a double from Osael Romero (20th, 87th). Warren Granados scored for Costa Rica, who dominated the contest, at the 65th minute.