Hatters defender scores his first goal for Jamaica as Reggae Boyz reach Gold Cup semi-final

Luton defender Amari’i Bell scored his first ever goal for Jamaica to seal a 1-0 win over Guatemala and a place in the Gold Cup semi-finals last night.

Winning his 14th cap, the Town centre half struck with six minutes of the second half gone at the TQL Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, taking a pass from Everton’s Demarai Gray inside the box and then coolly slotting into the bottom corner on his less favoured right foot.

That was enough for the Reggae Boyz to make the last four where they will take on Mexico, as on his goal, Bell said: “To go 1-0 up and the importance of the goal, it was an amazing feeling.

"Being the decisive goal of the game it made it even more, so now we're through to the semi-final, it's a great feeling.

"It’s been a long time coming, thankfully I got it in a game so important and it just means the world to me.

"It was a great pass, he’s (Gray) got the quality to find me which he did and it’s just about composure in the box and I took that opportunity.”

Summing up the contest itself in which Jamaica keeper Andre Blake won named star man, Bell continued: “The good thing is I think we've got even more to come.

"There were times when we could have done things better, but there’s also times when we did things well, so we’ve just to sharpen up those bits and we can be a real force.”

Now in the final four against a Mexican side who beat Costa Rica 2-0 in their quarter-final, Bell wants to put Jamaica in the final where they would take on either America or Panama.

The two sides have faced each other recently, playing out a 2-2 draw in their Concacaf Nations League meeting a few months ago.

Although their opponents are ranked 14th by FIFA, almost 50 places higher than the Reggae Boyz, Town’s defender was in a confident mood when discussing his side’s chances, adding: “It’s an amazing feeling to get to the semi-final, it’s something we set out to do and we’ve achieved that goal, but we're not going to stop here and go on and win the tournament

"It’s going to be a tough game, it always is with Mexico, but we believe in ourselves.

"We believe we've got the quality to win the game, so we just need to show it and hopefully things will be taken care of.

"We played them back in March, it was an even contest, but we’ve got the belief, we’ve got the confidence that we can go on and win the game.

"It’s going to be mean a lot to us, the nation, to everyone, and we know we can do it

"After the last campaign we went to the quarter-final, so we didn’t want to go home early, we wanted to do better, and go all the way.

“The feeling in the camp is good, the chemistry is good between everybody and we’re just buzzing.”