JPL coaches back hydration stops but want coaching curbs

A proposal to bring World Cup-style hydration breaks into the Jamaica Premier League (JPL) has drawn mixed reactions from local football figures, even as many see commercial upside.

Professional Football Jamaica Limited (PFJL) chief executive Owen Hill floated the idea in a Gleaner piece last week, urging the league to adopt the pauses in the form used at this year’s World Cup. Hill said the stops would aid player welfare in Jamaica’s climate and open fresh commercial openings.

Support for the health and revenue case is widespread among JPL stakeholders. Several coaches, however, worry that a mid-match pause would also become a tactical timeout.

Waterhouse coach Donovan Duckie wants coaching barred while players rehydrate.

“You are getting coaching in real time, where you can make more adjustments while the game is going on. So it benefits the coach and the team that is losing more.

“If I am winning the game, I don’t want you to get a water break; but if I am losing the game, I want a water break, so I can get some coaching points in,” he reasoned.

Duckie said FIFA ought to outlaw coaching during the stoppage.

“I was wondering when FIFA are going to step in and say no coaching is allowed. Why didn’t FIFA say no coaching is allowed inside the water break (at the World Cup)?

“FIFA should have said no coaching, and coaches are not allowed to leave their bench when the hydration is taking place; they could have done that.”

He still backs the breaks for athletes in local conditions.

“In Jamaica, based on our climatic factor. I would say it is 100 per cent welcome. Because of our weather players quickly dehydrate, but it also benefits the coaches to get in some coaching points, and it will benefit sponsors.

“I am a supporter of the hydration break, without coaching points, because once coaching is allowed during that period it benefits [losing] coaches.

“It’s no different from half-time going into a dressing room and they get hydrated, plus coaching points.

“If you are allowing hydration breaks plus coaching points, you are allowing three half- times, but otherwise I am 100 per cent in support of it.”

Former Tivoli Gardens and Arnett Gardens coach Jerome Waite said the tropical setting makes the pauses useful for players as temperatures rise, yet they can also favour a trailing side and interrupt a team that has momentum.

“We are in a tropical environment in our region, so it will be something that is good for the players with the time getting hotter and hotter. “It also has its disadvantages, where a coach can get an opportunity to speak to his team on the tactical aspects as it relates to the opponents, and that can make a difference. So it is something good, and it is something I can say is bad,” he commented.

“It can be positive for some, and it can be negative for others. It can break everything for a team going forward, and that can give the opponents an opportunity to regroup. So it has positives and negatives.”

Harbour View general manager Clyde Jureidini accepted that the stops create coaching windows, but argued both sides get the same chance and that clubs ahead must manage how they restart.

“It’s a good innovation. It will help with a couple things that have changed. One is, and we have seen it at this current World Cup, it increases the opportunity for the technical team to reassess, re-strategise and re-implement. “It means you have more tactical nuances in three breaks, in addition to the lead-up to the match preparation.

“It suggests you would get better football more often in each quarter of the game. It then requires players to respond differently with different skill sets, different tactics, different techniques and combinations. So, technically and tactically, I think that’s good,” he reasoned.

He pressed that the opening is mutual.

“It opens both sides. There is no reason on earth that if you are dominating before the break because your momentum is lost, it doesn’t mean you can’t re-strategise. “It opens up for you to do that or continue doing that, or change your tactic in order to get more dominance in a different way, but it opens the gate for everybody,” he continued.

“The same advantage the opponents have is the same advantage you have. You already know what is working and you need to find other ways to keep that working. It might suit you as well to re-strategise for the next window, if you see it fit.

“However, it pushes both ways. It depends on what you decide, what you discuss, and what you do.

“You become more comfortable when you have a position of dominance. You believe you have to do the same things, but probably you need to think more about what more, or what less, you need to do at that time.

“So as the leader at that point, you haven’t used that break technically and tactically as well as the opponent; that is what it is suggesting.”

Duckie, Waite and Jureidini all see another sponsorship lane that could put more money into the competition.

“For the commercialisation, it is a good initiative that will help to generate more capacity for small to medium and big-sized sponsors to get involved in the game, and create aspects that the commercialisation funding the clubs, the league and football fraternity needs.

“So it is a win-win situation for me, and I think it could be experimented with and implemented,” Jureidini added.