National coach Leo Beenhakker has set his focus on the 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cup, which will be contested in the United States from July 6-24. Beenhakker, as well as the majority of the national team’s players and technical staff, returned home yesterday from Monterrey, Mexico, via three US cities - Dallas, Washington DC and Miami. The TT lads were beaten 2-0 by Mexico on Wednesday in their CONCACAF World Cup Final Round qualifier and Beenhakker emphasised: “I think everybody who’s related to TT football is satisfied with the way we played. I’m also satisfied with the way we played. “At the other end, I’m a bad loser, I don’t like to lose matches,” he added. Reviewing Wednesday’s match, he noted: “for 70 minutes, we did a very good job. We’re playing (against) one of the top teams in the world.
“Then they got a lucky goal and that was, more or less, the key moment.” Beenhakker was quick to point out: “there were only a 10-day preparation with the team. I don’t think I can ask more of the players. They did a very good job over there.” Like every coach at all levels of the game, Beenhakker stressed that he don’t like to lose a match. As a result, he’s looking towards bettering the team in time for the Gold Cup, as well as the next World Cup qualifier against the Americans on August 17. “We have to be better in defence and in midfield,” he said. “I think that one of the reasons (why) we got in trouble is (that) we played too far in the back and we were not able to stop them in the midfield.
In related news, team captain Dwight Yorke returned to Australia to begin pre-season training with Sydney FC while Chris Birchall (Port Vale), Hector Sam (Wrexham) and Carlos Edwards (Luton) have also rejoined their respective English squads for pre-season work. Brent Rahim and Gary Glasgow, both without a club at the moment, are in Britain on trials while the left-footed trio of Avery John (New England Revolution), Marlon Rojas and Leslie ‘Tiger’ Fitzpatrick (Real Salt Lake) will feature in American MLS action today. As far as the coaching staff is concerned, Beenhakker is expected to go on vacation in St Maarten next week while his assistants Wim Rijsbergen and Theo De Jong are back in their native Netherlands. The trio will all return to TT later this month to begin preparations for the Gold Cup.