Former national midfielder Leroy De Leon says the T&T Football Federation and the ‘Soca Warriors’ should forget about trying to qualify for the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil and instead focus on 2018 or 2022.
De Leon, rated as one of the best midfielders all-time for T&T said in terms of qualifying for Brazil 2014 he had a big problem. “My problem is I don’t think we should try and qualify for Brazil but instead we should put things in place for 2018 World Cup Finals in Russia and beyond.
He explained, “Right now I don’t think we have the calibre of players to qualify or to perform at that level to get to a World Cup Finals and that’s just my point of view. “I have seen it all over the world and if you look at all the oriental countries, their football have gone sky high.
“This is because they took time and hired coaches to come in and coach their coaches and to put a proper system in place from infants all the way up.
“But here in T&T we are not doing that and we are just looking for ready made answers and its driving me crazy because a lot of the people right now on our national teams still have problems with the basics of the game like trapping the ball and that's a problem.”
“If you want to be good at any thing it comes by repetition where you have to be doing it every day. We do it part-time and we want to get four, five six million dollars. Its not done that way, only in T&T so I am saying forget about 2014 and lets put things in place for 2018 and beyond.
“After the 2006 Germany World Cup there was a big void and we had to bring back guys like Russell Latapy and Dwight Yorke and other old guys in our bid to qualify for South Africa 2010.
“We were the oldest team in Germany and four years later we basically had the same team trying to qualify for another world cup which showed we don't have any thing in place in terms of structure”.
With regards to the 2014 campaign...asked how far he believes the team can reach, De Leon replied, “To be honest with you I really don’t know. Maybe this new coach (Otto Pfister) is a miracle worker but I really don't know.
He said: “I’m not trying to take anything away from the players we have or the talent that we have here because I don't think its their fault. I blame us as elders and the T&TFF for the demise right now because we don't have anything at the ground level.”