de Oliveira TECHNICAL director Clovis de Oliveira on Thursday expressed a great degree of confidence in the national squad and remains unaffected by events in the camp of El Salvador who they are due to meet in a World Cup qualifier on August 16.
So satisfied is the Brazilian with the unit that has delivered the goods for him that he did not feel it necessary to have a friendly international match before the big day. Instead he has just organised a game against and Eastern Confederation All Star team.
"We respect El Salvador very much but we are not worried about them. They have their programme and the Reggae Boyz have our programme," he said at a training session on Thursday.
The Salvadoreans have been in training since Monday and have recruited a Brazilian, Celio Roberto Rodriquez da Silva. They also have friendly matches scheduled against Haiti and Ecuador respectively.
These developments, de Oliveira, said are not worrying to him.
"We have divided our preparation for El Salvador in two phases. The first phase is as you see is that we are giving opportunity to a lot of young players. This is for me to see as it is a long time since I have been in touch with them.
"We asked for this friendly match against the Eastern Confederation for us not to stretch our players too much. Fortunately, we had one month with the players and most of the group is going to be the same so we know them."
For the second phase, de Oliveira said, he will have the overseas-based players in the squad for about three days.
"Unfortunately eight of the players I am just going to see them just three days before the game so it does not make much sense to get a strong friendly game.
"I did not try to get an international friendly game because we did not see a need for that. Basically, the group we are trying to use, the unity is here and it is strategy that we have to improve. So, if we play this game (international friendly) we would not get enough time to improve to practice our set plays."
The overseas-based players to join Jamaica's squad will be named next week and are expected to be in the island at the weekend.
"I have spoken with some of them on the phone and we are expecting to speak with them again probably at the beginning of next week to see if we could get them to come earlier."
De Oliveira said there will be no additional overseas-based players invited as "the idea right now is to support the players here who have put the Reggae Boyz back on top", despite injuries to Darryl Powell, a starter in Jamaica'
s 3-1 win over Honduras, and Frank Sinclair.
"I spoke with those players last week and they are injured and unfortunately won't be available," said de Oliveira.
Midfielder Jamie Lawrence, who put in request more than a week ago to leave Bradford City but is yet to have any takers, will not be called because he is not settled and not training properly, de Oliveira said.
He is however open to Galaxy midfielder Winston Griffiths, who is on trial with Second Division team Reading.
The national team was due to leave for Ocho Rios yesterday and to have further training sessions in preparation for tomorrow's game at Drax Hall.
