 Yes, top tier football in Jamaica is where we start. This Friday edition of the Sports Max Zone, what began as a field of 14 has now dwindled to six. The Ren nephew, Jamaica Premier League, set to enter its final stretch, the playoffs kicking off on Monday. But let's get a refresh in all of the six teams still standing in the tournament. Raining champions, Mount Pleasant, finished atop the table at the end of the regular season while the team they defeated in last year's final Cavalier finished in second. Both teams get buys to the semifinal stage. Tivoli Gardens, Portmore United, Arnett Gardens and Waterhouse make up the rest of the spots. And it will be those four teams in action on Monday with Tivoli taking on Waterhouse and Portmore facing Arnett Gardens in first leg action. The winners of the Tivoli versus Waterhouse tie will have Mount Pleasant awaiting them in the semifinal while Cavalier will be the opponents for the winners of the Portmore, Arnett Gardens matchup. Now with these momentous clashes on the horizon, it's only right that we have two big guests joining us on set. First, the voice of the JPL behind the scenes, CEO of the PFGL, Owen Hill, a Fortis Cateri non-Potis, Kingston College man. And the voice you hear on the screen, Sportsmax football analyst, Leger Williams. Gentlemen, welcome to the Sportsmax Zone. This season has been characterized, gentlemen, by competitive football. And whereas there are many seasons when we follow the progress of the teams, we can have clear favorites. I know Mount Pleasant have been steady, they're regular season champions, but there's something about this season that looks difficult to put your finger on a winner. Your thoughts, CEO? Yeah, I like it. I really like it. I can tell you that much. I mean, when there's no clear favorite or runaway champion, it makes it more interesting. I can tell you that much. And the sponsors like it, you know? I love it. It's intriguing because you have to stay on. Exactly. Keeps you on your toes. You want to watch the games. You want to be a part of the action. You want to stay on the pulse. And I think it helps. The players look forward to it because, you know, there's a level of competitiveness between the teams amongst the players. I think it makes for good football. And what it shows is there's a general growth in the sport, from coaching to tactics to execution. I'm excited about what is to come. Yeah, and I said at the top of the show, Lige, that very often we see regular season champions unable to get the job done in the playoffs and going all the way to win the championship. In the last 10 years, I think Portmore is the only team that have been regular champions and went on to win the entire thing. I think they did it twice in 2018 and 2019. But no team has been able to do it. We will look at Monday's match-ups in just a moment. But Mount Pleasant are the regular season champions. They wear the crown. That is the target of everyone else. And they are defending champions as well. Does Mount Pleasant have the opportunity or a good opportunity in your mind to break the trend of regular season champions not going all the way to win the title? Well, sir, Lance, you know, that's a very good question. You know, I always say that I'm a betting man. I don't like to go against the trends. But I think for this time, as I've been saying for majority of the season, I do think that Mount Pleasant are the best team in the Jamaica Premier League. They have shown to be that so far. They have the deepest squad for sure. And I think they have top tier coaching also. And as Owen would say, the execution of the players and the team has been second to none as well in the league as shown by the regular season. So I do think that they have a really good opportunity to break that trend. But it's going to be tough. You also mentioned that a lot of the teams are so close in terms of quality, in terms of coaching, in terms of what they've been putting forward for most of the season. So I think all of the top six really have a pretty reasonable show to get that title. And it's going to be really tough all the way to them. Arnett Garnes are one of the most popular teams in Jamaica Premier League football, Lige. They were regular season champions last year and didn't manage to win the title. They missed out. Well, they reached the playoffs the year before as well. But they lost, I think, to Harbour View in the semifinals. And they have an opportunity now to get at least past this quarter final stage of the playoffs. How do you feel about Arnett and their Monday assignment? Yeah, that's going to be a tough game. I think looking specifically at the matchup against Portmore, Portmore beat them once this season. They also drew with them in match week 25, a couple of weeks ago. So this Arnett team, you know, it's a team going through a lot of transition. They lost both their coach and their assistant coach following the end of last season. You know, they didn't get the final last year. And it's been rough but steady at the same time for Arnett guys this season because it's a very, very young team. You can see that through their midfield, you know, players like Jayim Thomas, Jermaine Sheppard and a lot of their front line as well. Kayim Dixon, who has been bursting on the scene also. A lot of their front line, you look at their centre-back pairing as well. Cunningham has been, who has been their steady centre-back from last season, has been absent for quite some time for trials and stuff like that. With Sechevan, Willis coming back in Joel Jones. So it's a lot of rotation in this Arnett team and we have to mention as well that they're under first-year leadership from Xavier Gilbert. So it will be his first time coming into this type of role into the playoffs. So it's going to be interesting to see how he shepherds these young players into this type of environment because we all know when the playoffs get around, completely different ballgame. So it's going to be tough but I do see that game as being extremely close. It's hard to call it right now. Right, and I would never ask Owen to call the games because of the position that you hold. I feel as if it'd be so unfair to put you on the spot like that. So don't. Right, so I would not. But I am though going to ask you about the quality of both teams and you spoke about growth in your answer to Lance and that must feel really good to be watching these teams under you and your team's leadership growing because that can only be good for one, the sport and to your administration. So just talk to me about the quality of both teams. Well, all the teams that are there and even just a few who would have missed out, I would say we have seen significant growth. They understand the overall strategy. They're very clear on how do they get into this playoff position because what happens in this part of the season is that you get access to eyes that you wouldn't have normally had access to. Agreed. And then if you go further then you talk about conquer calf tournaments and you expose, you know, significantly 10X. So I think every one of the teams, obviously, they would have put the necessary systems in place and they continue to build. By no stretch am I telling you, Mariah, that we're where we need to be, you know. The clubs, they all know what their gaps are but we keep helping and we push and we set the standards. We copy best practices and I think the clubs are following suit because again, professional football Jamaica limited is what we call it. So the idea is we want to professionalize the sport. We want people to see this as their next step, as that move to transition into further professional football. And I think so far we're doing pretty decent and we continue to aim for the stars. Yeah, and one more before I go to Liz on the next picture. Do you find more players wanting to be a part of the JPL and battling for that spot to be a part of a team now? Yeah, I mean, I get a lot of queries and what's interesting is that I get the queries outside of Jamaica a lot of times. Wow. Yeah, I have Grenadon, Solutions, you know, Vincentians. Those are the people who want to come into the space because they've seen what we've done in terms of the quality of play. They've seen the broadcast. They've seen the kind of notoriety that they will get coming out of this. So I think, you know, for that, the teams have been doing well. The clubs have structured their organization for the most part and what we keep saying is how can we raise the bar? How can we get it better than it was before? How can we make the players feel like this is their next step? And I think so far we're trending in the right direction. I think so too. I'm very, very impressed with what I've seen from the JPL. Liz, this one's for you now. Tivoli, Waterhouse, what can we expect? And being the prediction guru that you like to call yourself, are you going to predict that one as well? Yeah, I have no problem with that. I think you've made a little bit of a mistake, the prediction guru that I am. Sorry, sorry. Thank you, R. I correct myself. Yeah, I think this tie is really well poised. I think an important thing going into the playoffs that I love personally, the first round of it, the four teams that we're seeing, all of these teams, if you have grown up watching the Jamaica Premier League, these are four. I think apart from maybe Harbaughu who missed out, these are four of the big guns. When you look back, if you're compared to an English Premier League, this is Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea. Sorry, Mariah. You're my own pleasant in this scenario, the champions. OK, thank you. Thank you. I'll take the champion tag. But if you look at it, there's so many titles between these teams. There are 19 titles, I believe, between these four teams. So it's big and being prestigious and Tivoli, Waterhouse is no different. You have Waterhouse, it has one, two titles, but last seven finals, for example. You have Tivoli that has won five titles and Tivoli are by far and away the most improved team from last season. Jerome Wait. Jerome Wait has done an excellent job and you've seen it not only with the quality of play, but you can track it with the numbers as well. Tivoli finished in 11th last season and this season they have finished in 3rd, just missing out on that automatic spot and it's not only just they're getting wins, they're doing it very stylishly. There were the top scoring team in the league, scoring 22 more goals than they did last season. They conceded 19 less as well, so they're improving on a defensive end. And for Waterhouse, I guess it's not a good omen because Tivoli have been in good form despite that last and the last game of the season. And in addition to that, Tivoli beat Waterhouse twice this past season, the regular season. So I think it's going to be very difficult for Waterhouse. Waterhouse do have a lot of quality and they do have goalscores up front. Javane Bryan, second leading goalscorer in the league, as well as Andre Fletcher with 11. So they do have quality, they do have a good team, but I think the Tivoli team full of confidence and full of quality as well. And as well as having an excellent coach, I'd be very, very shocked if we don't see Tivoli making their way into the semifinal. That's the prediction guru's prediction. All right, I know Waterhouse this season has been very fluctuating. They've been very unsteady. And I was making the point that I think only twice this year they've managed to put back-to-back pictures together, which is very unlike Waterhouse. I know they had a bad season last year, but the Waterhouse that we've grown accustomed to is a fiery team that is consistent and you have to come good to beat them all the time. But you made the good point earlier on, Lige, that Tivoli's a vastly improved team. Compare for me the two coaches because Jerome Waite, his CV is impressive. And the Waterhouse coach, Marcel Gale, has missed out and Waterhouse have been to finals and not winning, and they've been close but not delivering. Is there something about these two coaches that can tell us what we might expect? Well, that's an excellent question, Sir Lance. You know, I like those questions where we're comparing coaches and coaching styles. You'll have to stop me if I'm going on too long. You know, one thing that I love about both of these coaches is their attention to detail. So Marcel Gale, you know, he's worked on the Nevillebale for so long. So, as you can see, he's a positional base coach. He loves position of the ball as well. But he likes to give his players freedom. That includes a lot of players in close proximity to each other and they like to, you know, play in and around each other as opposed to stretching the pitch, for example, and trying to work around players in a positional sense. With Waterhouse, they like to stay close in proximity. The Kali relation is in, if you're going to look at the broad term, it's very popular in Brazilian football, Argentinian football, for example. But with the issue with that is that when the tiki taka is working, when they're not able to progress the ball centrally, there can be issues as I've spoken about on the show before. But when they're able to get the ball wide to a Andre Fletcher, that's when they get really dangerous. So I do think it's going to be important for them to find the balance, because I think Tivoli Garnes have been one of the best teams in terms of closing down central progression. And that's something if, you know, people go watch out for the preview of the games that have come up on Monday, you know, and the broadcasts, I'll be speaking about that before the game as well. Tivoli are excellent when it comes on to stopping central progression and stopping transitions as well because of their setup. And their setup is a very unique one. No team in the Jamaica Premier League executes or has a system like this. They're so fluid between their 3, 4, 3, 3, 2, 5 shapes, even sometimes a 5 at the back shape as well. And they have a lot of fluid players that man mark all over the pitch as well. So that's going to be very difficult for Waterhouse to cope with. So it's a good clash of styles, but it's a clash of styles that I do think that Tivoli would have the advantage in. Yeah, I want to get something from Owen about the spectacle of the playoff stage, which we'll get to in a moment, but a quick comment on the coaching differences that we just spoke of most of the times, or well not most, but several times I've heard your post game interviews with the Tivoli team and the players have spoken a lot about how fit Jerome Way has made them because he's a coach that emphasizes physical fitness. So physical conditioning is something that I think Tivoli will have up on a lot of the opponents. Yeah, and he's kept the players really fresh. He's rotated them throughout the season really well, especially in certain key areas, especially midfield. We've, at the start of the season, we saw Kevin Garnett, for example, you know, holding down the defensive midfield position. And now we've seen Nathan Thomas, who has an engine like basically no other in the league, and he's able to cover a lot of... An engine. I think he's going to be so important for Tivoli in this player front. And, you know, the difference between both teams, Waterhouse are a very fit team also actually, because they press better than most teams in the league. Tivoli don't have that high press, but what they do do, as I said, is condense the middle. And when you condense the middle, it makes it so hard for teams to play against you. And Tivoli, that shows in their defensive record, what it shows in how many goals they've scored from direct transitional opportunities as well. Counter-attacks, winning the ball back and getting it forward as quickly as possible. So that's the difference between both coaches. And I do think it's going to make a really good spectacle. From a spectator standpoint, Owen, how will the playoffs be different from the regular season, from the standpoint of putting an attractive product out there for the fans? I like that question because the number one beverage brand in the region, as they say the world, is the title partner. So Ray and Nephew is coming big and bold. From you enter the venue, actually even before you enter the venue, you'll be incentivized early. So if you come to the venue early enough, you'll be incentivized, that's the first thing. So you can guess things, try this. You will get things. Okay, great, wow. So we are telling Jamaica, come out early because you will be incentivized in coming out early. Once you come into the stand, they'll be transforming the north stand into what is called the Ray and Nephew Party Stand or the Wrong Party Stand. They're going to make it like CPL, carnival-like. That's what I'm thinking. Yes, they're going to expose us to a lot of the cocktail mixes. A lot of the things that they would generally have up their sleeve with the other partners, but the base of it obviously is Ray and Nephew. And we're always saying drink responsibly, for sure, even though it's a family event, but it's going to be a spectacle. And then throughout the entire venue, activations from all the other partners. So we have league partners, we have club partners. In different parts of the venue, you will have that kind of experience. So you're not just coming to a football game, really. You're coming to an overall event and we try to improve on that every single execution. We have five for the entire playoffs. This is really just one. And the entertainment side of it, ah boy, every single day you'll have some kind of entertainment package. I can tell you that much. And it's really the road to the finals, the super finals, we're calling it by the way. And it's going to be epic. I'm telling you that, you know, people are calling us down, you know, the entertainers are our friends. So, you know, and they like Rome. They like that partnership. And football. And they like football. There's a merge between sports and entertainment. So we expect for it to be a nice little spectacle and it's the best of local football as we have it now. And I think, you know, what we keep doing is improving it, you know, stretching the boundaries. And you know what, Mariah? The venue is now ready to be prepared because the TNT Red Force got rid of the Jamaica Scorpions in the cricket match at Sabina Park from early today. So Sabina Park is now ready to be prepared for football on Monday. And you have some of the best pitch, you know, experts covering the ground. So whenever the games play at Sabina, some strange reason, the quality just improves. I can tell you that much. You know, the goals that are scored, the vibe that is in the venue, I think it makes well for good football. And we're just looking forward to that. So the first match starts at what time, Lige? Seven, five. Okay, so... Five and then seven, 30. But, you know, there's a pretty much show that we'll have the broadcast in 20 minutes or 15 minutes before on Sports Max 2 on Monday. So, you know, you have to be there, you know, or, you know, speaking about all the sponsors. Coming out early. So what I have to do is finish the zone at six and then hurry down to Sabina. Yeah, you have to get down there. But you're going to have to get the Rear Neve products for both of us because, unfortunately, fortunately, I will be working, so I will be able to partake. I will be getting the Rear Neve products. Mariah has to do it for the both of us. Yeah, but everybody will have Rear Neve products. By the way, I have something to give you, Mariah. Me? Yes. Wow. Every... Where are you? Oh, my. Specifically. It smells good. Yeah, we have, you know, when we come, we come with goodies. You know, when we come, we come with goodies. So there is a specific request coming from the champions. Wow. All the way from the Twin Island Republic. Wow. Yes, you can come. Oh, my God, I'm freezing. So, personally, delivered by the champions, Mount Pleasant Football Academy. Thank you. Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Wow, this is beautiful. Thank you so much, Mount Pleasant. And of course, I will be wearing it on the Sports Maxon. So, Nathaniel, James, Kylie, Avery, they send their love and regards. Thank you. Wow. Your TNT Soco Warriors are looking out for you. They're the best. Thanks, guys. But by the way, I'm telling you, we have jerseys on sale, too, for the playoff teams. And it's nice. Yeah, we have access to jerseys. So if you want to support local football again, ensure that you purchase jerseys. We have them online. We have them physically. We'll be having them at the venue. The clubs have them. Yes. I would say go out and support. And then tickets, you also can get online. All right. You can get at the venue. And, you know, we're looking forward to see about 10,000 people. Yeah. And I'll be there. So come, come hang with me. We'll be at the JPL. Thank you so much, Owen Hill. Certainly. And Lish. Well, you're okay. So thanks. All right. Break time.