Soca Warriors News Room.

14-Apr-2008.

Warner: You blew it Shabazz.
By: Ian Prescott (Express).

"You had a chance to create history and go up to another level with our women," Jack Warner said to Jamaal Shabazz, who coached the Trinidad and Tobago senior women football team at the CONCACAF Olympic qualifiers which concludes today in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. "You had the chance up to the 90th minute and you blew it," he said.

Warner was referring to Trinidad & Tobago's preliminary round match against Costa Rica, which ended 2-2. The "Soca Princesses had twice led, and were in front leading 2-1 from the 35th minute, until a defensive lapse saw Costa Rica draw level in the final minute of the match. Had they held on, the T&T women would have advanced to the semi-final where they would have met Olympic champions, the United States. Instead, Costa Rica advanced on goal-difference.

Warner was in Mexico for the USA vs Costa Rica semi-final final, in which the Americans struggled to break down Costa Rica before advancing 3-0 on second half goals. Warner said that the Costa Rica effort and a similar 1-0 loss the Costa Ricans suffered to Canada, former World Cup semi-finalists, proved T&T had missed a big chance.

Warner said the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (T&TFF) went through tremendous cost to have the women team travel a week early to Mexico, so they could acclimatise. He said that although T&T are perennial Caribbean champions, it would have been a great achievement for them to also be among the top four in CONCACAF, alongside the United States, Canada and Mexico, teams which have all played at the Women World Cup.

"You go to Mexico and you catch a team like Costa Rica. You are leading 2-1, and you draw in the last minute?" Warner felt Shabazz had no excuse. Meanwhile, Warner cautioned national under-20 coach Zoran Vranes that he should not be looking to come up with similar excuses when T&T host the CONCACAF Final Round Under-20 World Cup qualifiers. Now that T&T have been confirmed as hosts and no longer have to go through qualifying, Warner told Vranes that his only job was to find the best young players in the country and prepare them to win one of the three places to the FIFA Under-20 World Cup.

However, there was not all condemnation for the T&T women's squad. Following his team's 6-0 victory over the Soca Princesses, Canadian coach Even Pellerud was quoted on the official Canadian football site as saying:" he Olympic Games campaign started with a quite comfortable win against a skillful and quick, but somewhat disorganised Trinidad and Tobago team."

Lincoln Phillips, the T&TFF'S technical director, said he was amazed at what the local women football programme has been able to achieve with a pool of just 200 players to choose from, while the Americans and Canadians had thousand of players. T&T's women have qualified for CONCACAF Final Round competition at under-17, under-20 and senior levels this year. Phillips said that the goal for Trinidad and Tobago now would be to become a force at the CONCACAF level.

Shabazz felt that the gap between T&T and the CONCACAF powers was narrowing. Shabazz also commended the TTFF for honouring the women's team although they fell short of expectations. Shabazz also said there was a big role for the local media in promoting the women's game.

"Being in Mexico for the last ten days, I saw a media that was frenzied,"Shabazz said. "And that woke me up about the role of the media in building women's football."

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