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Fri, Mar

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Trinidad and Tobago’s senior team, for the second consecutive Gold Cup, crashed out in the first round when needing a draw to go through to the next stage, by giving a lackadaisical display and conceding two second half goals to lose 2-0 to Colombia.


The result knocked the “Warriors” out of the tournament as it meant they finished fourth in Group A.

Head coach Leo Beenhakker held his hands up after the match, saying it was clear that his team was badly out of sorts in the match. But all is not lost as the team still holds a decent chance of sneaking a spot in Germany and that journey continues on August 17 away to the United States.

“Colombia played well and they deserved the win,” Beenhakker conceded. “They also played well in the past two games but they didn’t get the luck. I think you could easily have seen that our team just couldn’t get prepared enough for this game which was 48 hours after the last game and it showed out there today. We didn’t have a lot of possession, we didn’t have much in offense and the truth is that our goalkeeper  for the first seventy minutes saved the day for us,” Beenhakker told TTFF Media.

“Most of the time we never start too strong and today it was like that again. Colombia were strong from the first period of the match. Up to now I have not been able to change that. We played a little bit better in the second half but that doesn’t mean that we played well. Colombia played well and the deserved the win,”

Asked whether the conditions did not favour his team, Beenhakker said that should not be an excuse.

“I can’t change the heat and I can’t change the pressure. We have to be prepared to play these kind of matches. Once again, I am very pleased that everybody is going back to their clubs now especially the guys that play in Europe. They will start their preparation and start playing in their normal leagues so that for the next game we should not have any problems about players not being fully ready. At least we have half of August and then it’s off to the US for our next qualifying game.”

When questioned on how he will now get this team focused and ready for the next qualifier having seen what some players could offer in the Gold Cup which can now only be seen as three warm-up games, Beenhakker said a lot will tell inside the last week before the game.

“You know how it is. Everybody is going back to their clubs now and I have to get them back five days before the USA game. That’s all there is to it. Hopefully everyone will be in good shape and then we regroup to get ready. We already said this week that our power up front is with three players, Stern John, Dwight Yorke and Carlos Edwards. Two of them were not able to play in this tournament. Hopefully they will be with us next month and the only thing I can do now is to look at the few local players before the last week before the game, ” Beenhakker added.

Probably the only positive note coming out of the last game was that Marvin Andrews received a just a knock to his left ankle and not his knee as alarm bells were at first ringing especially after he went down a second time and had to be replaced by Atiba Charles in the second half. The ankle blow is not serious. When Andrews went down though, the Colombians continued to play around the penalty box, the Mexican referee Marco Rodriguez never blew his whistle until the play led to a foul atop the box which resulted in Colombia’s first goal.

On another note though, a rule in the Gold Cup showed that players who received two yellow cards in separate matches and did not serve the suspension in the same tournament, would have to do so in any other competition to follow which means that midfielder Chris Birchall and Avery John are both out of the next World Cup qualifier against United States. However, if a player picked up one yellow in the Gold Cup and already had a previous one from the World Cup qualifiers, he would have been allowed to play the next Gold Cup game as earlier cards were wiped out for the tournament. But those who had only one card before the Gold Cup and did not receive any during the tournament, still go back into the qualifiers with one caution to their name.