It's going to be a long year for the national football team and their die-hard supporters in 2005. Instead of relishing the thought of ten home and away games against the best in the CONCACAF region and the prospect of Trinidad and Tobago making it to the 2006 World Cup in Germany, I am dreading the final qualification campaign and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Is there any semblance of confidence as you look forward to the battles to come ?
There have been all sorts of apologies from those involved with the Soca Warriors after almost every game in the just-concluded semi-final round, but there has been no drastic improvement in any area.
As a matter of fact, the performances have gotten decidedly worse.
I must admit that I didn't make it to the St Vincent game last week-the wife had to go out and earn some money, so I had to stay at home and look after the children-but none of the feedback gives cause for optimism.
But I did go to see our match against Mexico last September when, by the time I made it into the Hasely Crawford Stadium, T&T were already a goal down, then conceded another, which could be blamed on a goalkeeping error.
But with about ten minutes to go to half-time, the home team finally started to string some passes together, which led to a Stern John goal, and after half-time they played really nice football for about 15 minutes.
The last time I checked, though, an international match is 90 minutes.
Then we went to Mexico where, if not for the woodwork and the brilliance of Shaka Hislop, we would have gotten at least five or six goals against us.
There seemed to be no plan or purpose about the players and it was a really pathetic display. And it wasn't even in the high altitude at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, where the Mexicans will almost certainly play all their home games next year.
Things don't look too good in the T&T camp right now and there's no reason why they should get any better by the time February 9, the date of our first contest, rolls around.
Five years ago, going into the final qualifying round, at least we had the consolation of a 1-0 victory over Mexico, thanks to a bit of magic from Russell Latapy, who had his riding partner Dwight Yorke for company in the line-up.
We got a little carried away with that result, though, and when Latapy and Yorke prematurely exited the stage, we were left with no other world-class outfield players, a woefully inadequate coach in Ian Porterfield, who just couldn't cut it when it came to the final round, and it was all downhill from there, except when John blasted a beauty past Honduras and we upset their World Cup plans.
The Brazilian Rene Simoes was at the helm then, but it was too little too late.
With our prospects looking about the same or even worse at this juncture, with no ultra-talented players in the squad and head coach Bertille St Clair long past his sell-by date and fast losing his grip on the team, are we going to wait until the point of no return to take some drastic action and at least make a whole-hearted effort to put up a good showing against the likes of the Mexicans, the Americans and the Costa Ricans.
Jack Warner, ego trip or not when it comes to his fellow jefes in the FIFA hierarchy, has put money where his mouth is and backed the team over the years.
But how come, with the exception of Simoes, he has never secured a really good coach for the national team ?
I should point out here, though, that he didn't give Stuart Charles Fevrier, who had the respect of the players, a fair chance.
Maybe Charles could be reinstated, although it's only while writing this that it struck me-why can't we bring back Simoes ?
The man has done it before, having taken the Reggae Boyz of Jamaica to France in 1998, and definitely knows how to complete the task.
So Jack, can you dig a little deeper into whatever coffers are at your disposal and put your hands on the funds needed to secure the skills of someone like Simoes.
And if he's not available, then another coach of that calibre.
Dutchman Arie Haan, who just left his post in China, comes to mind and I'm sure there are a few other candidates out there who would be willing to take up the challenge.
Because with the talent pool not as deep as it used to be, we aren't going to be plucking any new sensation out of the air to supplement Stern's goal-scoring or a durable defender to hold off the likes of Landon Donovan, so the only thing we can really do is change the man at the helm and enlist someone with more international exposure who will get the most out of the players at his disposal.
Wheeler and dealer that Jack is, I'm sure he can arrange some funds to attract Simoes and convince him to return to T&T. Maybe he can even get the Ministry of Sport involved and some of the money they skimped on spending on the Cricket World Cup 2007, they can loan to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation to cover Simoes' salary.
But the time to do it is right now
.
For if anyone has any doubts about the poor state of the national team, I even got to feeling sorry for the Jamaicans-not that there's any love lost for them on my part ever since a contingent from that country cheered for the opposition against our netball team during the 1979 World Championships here in Trinidad-as they made their exit from the 2006 World Cup last week Wednesday when held to a 1-1 draw by the United States. ...While we laboured to get past St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The Jamaicans don't have as good a squad as they did back in '98-although Ricardo Gardner and Ricardo Fuller are excellent players-and they were playing more as individuals rather than a tightly-knit unit against the USA.
But as Express football reporter Ian Prescott observed, even though they aren't at the top level, their players will tackle hard and fight the game right down to the end and never throw in the towel.
That's the attitude we need to see from our Warriors, so that even though we may not make it all the way to Germany, at least we would have given it our best shot.
And yeah, we need a new coach calling the shots.
Get out the cheque book, Jack.