CHICAGO – Jamaica knew the importance of its Copa America Centenario opener on Sunday. Sharing a group with Mexico and Uruguay, a win Sunday at Soldier Field seemed key to the hopes of Jamaica or Venezuela.

Assistant coach Miguel Coley, standing in for red-carded manager Winfried Schaefer during the post-game press conference, called it the “toughest game in the group on a psychological level, both teams believe that we could have gotten three points.”

Venezuela walked away with the win, 1-0, giving them an early edge on advancing, but the Reggae Boyz seemed heartened by their performance down a man for more than 65 minutes.

“I think we take a lot of confidence from it,” Giles Barnes said. “Going for 10 men for 65 minutes we showed how fit we are and the fact that we can still catch 11 men on the break shows we’ve got a lot in our squad. It was unfortunate with the red card and the sending off, we’ll have to look at that one and see what we think about it. But the heart of the team showed and the desire to not give up, I’m so proud of my boys.”

Asked whether Sunday could have been considered a must-win game, Jamaican goalkeeper Andre Blake said, “Maybe yes, but right now we’re going to think that we can still make it out of the group, we just got to go in and take care of business.”

Despite an early chance, things quickly turned ugly for Jamaica. Josef Martinez scored in the 15th minute to give Venezuela the lead and in the 24th minute Rodolph Austin was sent off. 

“It’s always hard when you go a man down but I think it shows our camaraderie and our team spirit that we didn’t concede another goal, and that we kept on going, we still worked forward, we still created chances, everyone was still flying back and forth,” Barnes said. “Playing for our country means a lot for us so we gave every single sweat, blood and tears that we did out there. Unfortunately we didn’t hit the back of the net but we feel that we could have deserved a little bit more.”

In the 40th minute, center back Wes Morgan came on for an injured Kemar Lawrence. Afterward, Coley called Lawrence’s injury a “slight groin tear” and said a doctor would make a decision on him later.

Morgan himself didn’t start, an exclusion that was attributed to his recent return from Leicester City’s title celebrations.

“Obviously I only trained twice since I joined up with the squad and the boys have been together in camp for over a week,” Morgan said. “They had a good performance against Chile so it’s up to the manager to make the decision whether he’s going to make changes or not and he didn’t.

“So yeah on another day we could have performed well I think, but going down to 10 men made it hard and it was a goal down so it was always going to be difficult.”

Morgan said he felt like he could have done with a couple more training sessions, but grew into the game.

“At the start it was quite tough, not having a proper warm up and going straight into the game, it was a hot day and we was 10 men and a goal down so it was all against me, but I felt OK,” Morgan said. “Coming into a tough game it’s never going to be easy but I feel, especially in the second half, the team gave a great account of itself.”

If Jamaica walked away with any consolation Sunday it was that performance in the second half.  Blake made three of his six saves to keep Jamaica in the game and the Reggae Boyz continued to pressure Venezuela, putting three shots on target and one off the post.

“On another day we could have got an equalizer or maybe a couple goals to win the game,” Morgan said.

As Barnes said, “We feel when it’s 11 v 11 it’s a fair playing field. The athleticism and the attack force we have combined with our defense, we can put anyone under pressure. So we’re looking forward to the next two games and hoping to get the three points from each one.”

The tournament only gets tougher from here for Jamaica.

The Reggae Boyz next face Mexico on Thursday at the Rose Bowl in a rematch of last year’s Gold Cup final.  They finish the group stage June 13 against Uruguay in Santa Clara.

“We all know now what we have to do,” Blake said. “They’re tougher opponents but I think we play better when we play tougher opponents so we’ll be ready for the next game.”