Trinidad and Tobago’s senior team head coach Wim Rijsbergen took Wednesday’s 4-1 defeat to Austria with a pinch of salt and vows to return to the sunshine and work the team’s way back into a respectable fashion.
The Dutchman let it be known after the defeat in Vienna that he was disappointed immensely with the performance of the team as their lackadaisical first half performance allowed the Austrians to take the match beyond their reach before 20,900 fans at the Ernst Happel Stadium.
The “Soca Warriors” as they suffered too many unforced errors and paid the price with Rene Aufhauser grabbing a first half hattrick and substitute Ferdinand Feldhofer netting a late fourth item for the hosts.
Rijsbergen, already missing no less than seven World Cup regulars, thought his team would have had a chance of salvaging a result as though being exploited at the back, they did manage to force some pressure on the Austrians with Carlos Edwards and Collin Samuel in particular running at them.
But skipper Dennis Lawrence was an overworked man by the end of the game and even his efforts couldn’t prevent the scoreline. Missing due to late knee injury was leading goalscorer Stern John,Dwight Yorke, Avery John, Kenwyne Jones, Brent Sancho, Kelvin Jack with Cornell Glen injured out and the likes of Shaka Hislop, Silvio Spann and Marvin Andrews also out of the fray.
Wouldn’t we have had a lot of answers from the defeat, Rijsbergen was asked and he replied “Not just answers but also questions. The people in Trinidad saw the game. Don’t matter what international game you play, if you start too easy or too slow, you pay the price for it. Physically we give the Austrians the chance to come into the game and they build up their confidence,” Rijsbergen told TTFF Media after the game.
“ We didn’t show in the twenty minutes that we came to win this game. We didn’t have one good pass in the first eight minutes with the first one being from Aurtis to Carlos. If you start like that then of course it’s very difficult to come back .Everyone sees how easy we gave the goals away. After some talking, we did a little better in the first half but that wasn’t enough.
“But if you can play much better from the first half then you won’t have to pay the price.
He emphasized the need for the players, particularly the home-based ones to increase their intensity of play. And not because four of those outfield players didn’t start means he cannot refer to them as the fact is, had they been in better conditions, the possibility lies that they could have been among the starters.
“Physically, if you see their number 6, he scored three goals and he did a lot more. On the day you have to do a lot of work and it’s a team effort. Austria is not the best team in the world but all their guys were working and fighting for every one v one situation. If you do that, then the rest would come much easier,” he added.
The former Dutch defender didn’t forget to say that prolific scorer Stern John deserves every credit for his efforts for T&T.
“I know Stern has a lot of enemies but we saw also today that Stern John is by far the best forward that the country probably ever had. We missed him because with him holding the ball a little more, it would give us some more time to breathe and build but it didn’t; happen today. It’s a good signal to the other players to work very hard and it takes a lot to play this international game.”
Next up will be the Digicel Cup in T&T from January 28 to February 11 but Rijsbergen and his staff heads off to South Caroline next week to conduct a scouting camp for players in the North American region eligible of playing for this country.
The overseas-based pros will return to the respective clubs on Thursday while the home-based contingent will also leave Vienna for Port of Spain on the same day.