he was coach already. failed
Exerpt from interview of Leonsen Lewis by Tallman....judge for yourself ..
You returned to Trinidad & Tobago in 2002 at the age of 36 and played one season for W-Connection. You then went on to coach their U-20 team. Do you see yourself pursuing coaching for the foreseeable future?
LEONSON: I just finished a Level 3 coaching course which I topped. And they take the top two coaches to England. It’s about 20 coaches from all over the world who are invited to England. Once you get that, you can coach anywhere in the world. It’s a FIFA licensed course. But before all of that, when I started coaching I was kind of lost. I used to play football and I knew something about the game, but I never really coached anybody.
WN: Was it a different perspective?
LEONSON: Yes. Then I had Stuart Charles, who I played under for one year. To me, he is the best coach in the Caribbean.
WN: I have heard that from a lot of people.
LEONSON: I’ll tell you why. I played professionally for 13 years and I had a lot of coaches, and there was one coach who stood out, Jorge Jesus (currently coaches Belenenses). Up to this day we remain friends. He basically taught me everything I know about football, in terms of tactics, how to watch the other team, how to know what they are playing, how to get your team to play. And when I came back home people were telling me that Stuart Charles is a good coach and I said “yeh, but none of allyuh eh play professionally.” In my first four years in Portugal, I learned nothing. Russell and I learned nothing, we just played. We just knew that I played left wing and he played midfield. And this man taught me all about football. So to come home and meet somebody who is better than the man who was my best coach in Portugal? That says it all. The sessions he conducts is so game-like and professional, the way how he handles a team, the video sessions are even better than what I did in Portugal. He’s complete. The man is passionate about the game. He’s a total coach. If Trinidad & Tobago didn’t make it with Beenhakker, they would have made it with him.
WN: That is one of the things I never understood. When Fevrier was in charge of the national team in 2003 , they toured Africa and did reasonably well. They came back and next thing you know, Bertille St. Clair is the new coach. For me, the time for bringing back St. Clair had already passed. He was undeservingly fired in 2000 and now it seemed as though the TTFF were trying to make amends. To my knowledge, no reason was ever given publicly for the firing of Fevrier.
LEONSON: Let me tell you why the brought back Bertille and got rid of Stuart Charles. Fevrier is not a “yes” man and what he says goes. When he is controlling the team, he’s controlling the team. Nobody can tell him who to bring in the team, who to give a trial or who to play or who not to play. They brought in Bertille because they wanted someone who they could control. I don’t think I would ever coach a Trinidad & Tobago team because I don’t want my friends, peers and teammates fighting me down for a Trinidad & Tobago job. I spoke with Jack Warner and he told me that everybody on the committee thought that Fevrier was the man for the job. I told Jack “I don’t want anything from you, I am just trying to advise you because I’m passionate about the game and I love my country and I want to see my country do their best.” Jack and I sat down in his office and I told him “All I want is a proper coach to coach my national team. I have worked with this man for 4 years and he is the man for the job.” They gave him the job and I congratulated Jack and I said “Finally we could go somewhere.” They then fired him and I called Jack and he said “Leonson, I alone cannot keep him there. If everybody else on the committee is telling me that the man is doing this and doing that, and everyone is fighting down the man, then I have no choice but to remove him.”