Style vs substance
By: Fazeer Mohammed (Express)
Wednesday, August 22nd 2007
It's about time we fling that shovel out of the equipment bag. Anton Corneal's comment about the national under-17 team digging a hole for themselves on the way to Monday's 4-1 loss to Ghana was just another version of a familiar lament about the way we generally play football in Trinidad and Tobago, and what usually happens when our national teams, of all age-groups, step onto the international stage.
Just as the Opposition of the day can be relied upon to lambaste almost every aspect of any Finance Minister's budget presentation, so too can we almost close our eyes and predict what will happen in the remaining two Group F games of the Under-17 World Cup against Colombia and Germany.
Despite the underdog status, there will be moments of creative brilliance in attack. But even if it results in an early goal, glaring defensive frailties are likely to be embarrassingly exposed, leaving all diehard supporters of the red, white and black to torture themselves about what could have been if such-and-such chance had been put into the back of the net and if so-and-so wasn't sleeping at the back.
Tomorrow morning's duel with the Colombians in Cheonan will be our 11th game in four different global football tournaments over the past 16 years, from the Under-20 event in Portugal in 1991 to hosting the Under-17 version ten years later to last year's historic appearance in the senior tournament in Germany and now this competition in South Korea. Ten of those games have been lost (the exception of course being that memorable goalless draw with Sweden in Dortmund 14 months ago), and even if we haven't always been run off the park, the evidence is there in abundance that our general style of play remains deficient in taking us to the next level of international competition.
At times like this, when we're trying to assess where we went wrong, I'm reminded of an encounter with an Italian football writer on the eve of the decisive clash with the United States on November 19, 1989. Giancarlo Galavotti was one member of a fairly sizeable contingent of international journalists who had come here to see who would claim the 24th and final spot at the 1990 World Cup in Italy.
Of course, this country was in the firm grip of football frenzy and, as a result, objective analysis was in very short supply as we were all on board in backing Clayton Morris' side to make history at the expense of the Americans. A couple of days before the kick-off at the then National Stadium, I enquired of Galavotti as to the standard of our football when compared to other emerging nations. He wasn't fluent in English, but the word "naive" came up more than once in his halting explanation, although he tried to let me down in as polite a manner as possible.
Fast-forward to last Friday night and a lively exchange between former national teammates Everald Cummings and Lincoln Phillips during a radio programme. "Gally" was staunchly defending the "Kaisoca Soccer" concept that he developed and refined in his role as head coach in taking the national team to within a point of the World Cup finals. "Tiger", on the other hand, maintained that a truly indigenous style results in us looking good in spurts but invariably conceding a hatful of goals by the final whistle. In his position as technical director at the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation, he was solidly endorsing the present drive to model a national football programme after the Dutch system.
These issues of style and identity need really to be addressed in a proper forum once and for all if our football is to progress beyond individual players making it big in some of the most glamorous and lucrative professional leagues in the world. So far, the sum of impressive parts is not adding up to a formidable whole, with or without the latest version of self-defeating bacchanal that invariably involves Jack Warner.
Clearly Leo Beenhakker, hailed as the great saviour in successfully resurrecting the 2006 World Cup qualifying campaign, exerts a very strong influence more than a year after departing to take charge of Poland. Yet, even after holding the Swedes to a stalemate and defying England for 84 minutes, there are many, especially fans of Russell Latapy, who maintain that the Dutchman's plan to get as many players as possible behind the ball in Germany robbed us of the chance to really exhibit our innate flair on the biggest showcase in world football.
The counter to that argument is that playing in true Trini fashion, although it may have been pleasing to the eye and even resulted in a goal or two, would have seen us getting bad, bad licks given what seems to be an almost inherent lack of discipline at the back. Everybody wants to attack, but few are prepared to put in the hard work to get back and defend. In one word: naive.
While the debate of foreign versus local continues, we also need to focus on whether, at the end of this experience in South Korea, we will be any closer to agreeing on the way forward for football in Trinidad and Tobago, and if that way forward is something we are comfortable with in striking the balance between style and results.
Maybe then our players, of all age groups, will stop taking shovels with them onto the pitch.
- fazeer2001@hotmail.com