Team Profile
Official Name
Two-time Concacaf Gold Cup finalists Jamaica will be hoping to summon some of the magic of 2015 and 2017 when they kick off the 2023 Gold Cup.
The Reggae Boyz are making their 13th appearance in the tournament and enjoyed their best finish when they reached the Final in 2015 and 2017.
Both appearances came in historic fashion, with the 2-1 semifinal win versus the United States marking the first ever Gold Cup win for Jamaica against the U.S., while the 2017 1-0 semifinal victory over Mexico was Jamaica’s first ever Gold Cup win against El Tricolor.
That 2015 Final was also the first time that a Caribbean nation had ever reached a Gold Cup Final and four years later in 2019 Jamaica notched another achievement by becoming the first Caribbean side to reach the semifinal stage in three consecutive Gold Cups.
They are also one of the teams that competed in the inaugural edition in 1991 and overall will be playing in their 13th Gold Cup in 2023 and fifth straight.
The island nation possesses an overall record of 20W-9D-21L in Gold Cup play, with 57 goals scored and 68 conceded.
Darren Mattocks sits atop the all-time Gold Cup scoring table for Jamaica players with five goals, with Shamar Nicholson and Demar Phillips slightly behind with three goals each.
Veteran DF Kemar Lawrence is the country’s all-time Gold Cup appearances leader with 20 games, followed by Je-Vaughn Watson with 17 games and Jermaine Taylor with 16 appearances.
Drawn into Group A, Jamaica will first take on the U.S. and Trinidad and Tobago in the group stage, plus one of Curacao, Saint Kitts and Nevis, French Guiana or Sint Maarten from the Gold Cup Prelims.
The Reggae Boyz returned to the Gold Cup thanks to their second-place finish in Group A of League A of the 2022-23 Concacaf Nations League.
Jamaica got several big performances from players in those four games, including Junior Flemmings, who scored two goals, while Ravel Morrison had both a goal and an assist.
Another big contributor was Shamar Nicholson, who supplied three assists and that trio of players all stand to figure in Jamaica’s Gold Cup plans.
Yet when it comes to Jamaica, perhaps the player that means the most to their success is star GK Andre Blake. A winner of the 2017 Gold Cup Golden Glove Award, Blake will once again be a steady presence in net and provide the defensive comfort for his teammates to go forward.
