Timbers defender Alvas Powell will be returning to Portland a little ahead of schedule.
Powell reportedly left the Jamaican national team on Wednesday morning ahead of their CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal match against Haiti on Saturday (8 pm ET; Fox Sports 2, Univision, UDN in the US, Sportsnet World in Canada). Powell didn’t appear in either of Jamaica’s first two group stage matches before coming off the bench for the Reggae Boyz in the second half of their Group B-clinching win against El Salvador on Tuesday.
Prior to leaving for the Gold Cup, Powell had started all 19 of Portland’s league matches this year.
Jamaica were already shorthanded for Saturday’s quarterfinal, with Houston Dynamo defender Jermaine Taylor having been ruled out of the tournament due to injury on Wednesday and FC Dallas midfielder Je-Vaughn Watson (yellow card accumulation) and Vancouver Whitecaps striker Darren Mattocks (red card) both suspended for this weekend’s encounter.
Reggae Boyz head coach Winfried Schafer told Jamaican outlet The Gleaner that he told Powell that he would be relying on him to help fill-in for the missing players before the 20-year-old left camp. The Gleaner reported that Powell was unhappy with his lack of playing time with Jamaica.
“I told [Powell], ‘your time is coming,’” Schafer told The Gleaner. “We need all players, we need Michael Hector, we need you, we need [Simon] Dawkins, we need Ryan Thompson.”
“Now we need him, he told me he don’t want to play. You have no chance when you think about I, I, I. No, it’s we that’s important; we, the team, that’s important.”
Schafer said that he will add University of North Carolina midfielder Omar Holness and another player to his squad prior to Saturday’s quarterfinal in Baltimore.
“When he does not want the shirt of Jamaica or the Jamaica Football Federation, I cannot help him,” Schafer said.
“For me he is the past. I have to watch what we’re doing now.”
