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Horace Burrell

Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) boss captain Horace Burrell remains hopeful that the national team begins a steady march back up the FIFA World rankings table, with a solid performance at next month's Caribbean Cup, in Montego Bay.

A poor recent run of result has seen the Reggae Boyz plunge over 30 places in the world charts since the start of the year. The are currently in 113th position, having fallen 13 places in the most recent edition.

"We are hoping for an improvement in our ranking significantly after the tournament. We have not been involved in a tournament for a long time where as the other Caribbean teams have been playing against each other so their rankings will go up," Burrell told Star Sports.

usual suspects

Regional the Reggae Boyz once ranked as high as the third best team have fallen to 14th in the region. Costa Rica, Mexico and United States are the usual suspects at the top of the table, but perhaps worrying for Jamaica's national team they have now fallen behind teams like Antigua and Barbuda, Haiti, Cuba, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.

National coach Winifried Schäfer has insisted that the team's current position may not be so important, as he looks to develop a strong unit capable of qualifying for next World Cup. Burrell, however, does not believe that the rankings, an issue for team in the past, cannot be ignored.

"The ranking are extremely important, even in the CONCACAF region it is very, very important and maybe the coach did not quite mean it in that manner," Burrell said.

The Reggae Boyz have lost five of their last six games.