Senior Corneal says T&T in Korea.
...was like watching a movie with emotions.
By: Shaun Fuentes (TTFF).[/size]
Trinidadian FIFA Technical Study Group member Alvin Corneal, currently on duty at the FIFA Under 17 World Championship witnessed two of Trinidad and Tobago’s matches against Ghana and Colombia over the past week and he believes that the period definitely served in paving a better road for the future of the local game.
Corneal, a former national coach and player said that while predictions and assumptions have been made both before and after T&T’s appearance on the second world stage within just over a year, the fact remains that most would have been correct.
“Some will call it a rude awakening for our young footballers. Others will refer to it as a disappointing appearance to the FIFA World U17 tournament. There are those who will claim that they knew the results before the matches were played. Funnily enough, everyone was correct in making their own assessments of our national U17s in Seoul, Korea,” Corneal stated.
However he pointed out that watching the young “Soca Warriors” in action in Korea was almost like watching a movie “with emotion involved”.
“It’s not unusual to expect the best from the team we support, providing that we are aware of what is considered the best for T&T in this arena, where the big guns of the Football world, seem as uncertain as ourselves as to what they can expect from their own youngsters.
“Sitting and watching the matches for a ‘trini’ supporter was not just like watching a movie, but there was emotion involved among those who saw this stage as a huge one in the lives of these teenagers. We saw Ghana score three goals in forty minutes and pondered as to what kind of scoreline will the end result be. It ended 4-1, a relief for the fans who felt that it would be much more. Many even missed the recognition of the small nation of T&T holding the two time winners to a 1-1 in the second half and earning 51 percent of the possession.
T&T also had more possession, 54 to 46 percent in the 5-0 loss to Germany.
“If we accepted Ghana s absolute physical superiority and ball dominance in the first half, it would have been equally as fair to admire the courage and determination of the new kids on the block, T&T, who would have come away with valuable lessons from the exercise.
“Columbia was five times better on goals to the Young Soca Warriors, who went to the half time whistle trailing by one goal. To a realist, that would have bothered the Columbians, who were aiming to win the group and move to the round of sixteen.
Maybe our emotions took a beating when we succumbed to a second goal in the 60th minute and dropped our heads in despair, losing the gist of this essential exercise of learning for the future and allowing a mistake to be ineffective to the mindset of the player.”
A head coach at one point and now seeing his son at the helm, the senior Corneal knows well that the aftermath will be just as difficult as the period during the actual action.
“Even for the Coaching staff, the experience is vital, whether its about the hot climate, the vast time change, the selection of age group teams in the context of how the choice of players should be chosen in the original stages. A statistical review of comparisons of age, is interesting. Having looked at the more advanced countries involved in the tournament and speaking with many of the coaches, there is a serious lesson from which we should address in the future. All of Argentina, Brasil, Germany, USA, Belgium, England, Ghana, Nigeria Japan, Korea, Spain Costa Rica and Colombia, selected their players based upon their birth date being in the 1990 year. In this way, they had full fledge seventeen year olds, or close to seventeen. Trinidad and Tobago had five players born in 1991.
He then asked the question.
“What does it say ? It says that maturity, physical capability would not have been comparative to the others. There was an age disparity of some twenty three months, through no fault of our own or the organisers. The big countries have more of a population from which to choose and could afford to allow the younger players to wait their turn. We cannot. Our secondary school players vary from 13 to 18 in the school competition, and we do not take heed.
Now it’s time sit, stand and run a review.
“Well, reality has hit us and now we must sit and review our development for the future. These young players appears to us to be extremely talented, when we compare them with those among whom they compete locally. World Cup is vastly different and there is every reason why we should take another look at our approach.
“Criticise if its going to bring you comfort, cry if it will end your pain, but please do not allow the lessons to be missed amidst the results of a tournament . The road to a better future for our Football is ahead, probably with more ammunition for the preparatory process,” Corneal concluded.
