AS the historic Brazil Train and Play Camp in Rio de Janeiro continues, the Golden Jaguars played their second of four practice matches on Friday afternoon against the Madureira Sports Club and went down 0-3.

The team, which is still gelling together under new head coach Michael Johnson, conceded two goals in the first half and another in the second as, yet again, all the players on tour, except Trinidad and Tobago-based Sheldon Holder who joined the squad on Friday, played either half.

Coach Johnson, commenting on the match, said the host team moved the ball very well but also noted that the young Golden Jaguars have had a tough week so far but should be playing better than they did in this second match.

According to Jamaican Johnson, “to say that it was a tremendous performance, I would be lying but there are so many things that gave us opportunities to work on and that’s the way we look at it. It’s what can we do now to help some of these younger players.

 There may be four or five that we can actually pull into our squad, so we’ll go again tomorrow and work with them and really try to help them in their pattern of play, style of play, their decision making; but it has been a worthy exercise so far.”

A number of the players in Rio are U-20 and U-23 and are being groomed for the future as they rub shoulders with some of the more seasoned campaigners, with the Golden Jaguars coach noting “we guarantee that when they leave here they’ll be a lot better conditioned, in a lot better shape and have a stronger mentality, based on what we are giving them.”

“So, it’s been a real taxing couple of days and that’s what these camps are for; you want to come out of these camps fitter, stronger and with a little bit more knowledge. We’re not looking at the results as of yet because we know if it is about results, we wouldn’t have trained the players the way we did in the last few days,” Johnson said.

On Thursday, the team was involved in some circuit training as well as enjoyed some time in the warm pool and hot and cold saunas under the guidance of Dr. Mark Faghy, the Head of Sports Science on the team.