I have been analyzing the recent TnT game over and over, I have watched the Mexico and Guatemala games at least 4 times each.
The key things that benefitted us in that last Mexico game was lack of High Pressure by mexico and this was the main reason for our improved play in that game.
In world Football the game is about Respect.
The better teams in the world respect each other. You will never see Barcelona rushing real madrid with a full team press in the attacking third of play.
However in the past teams like mexico used to rush we whole day and force Dog Tallman, John, etc into turnovers which sometimes led to goals.
As lincoln say ball possesion and lack of stupid mistakes.
Does Mexico respect us now...Hell No they just did not care enough to chase the game.
If you watch the game Our Back 4 was given infinte time on the ball to build from the back. In the past we would have been under pressure and is boom kick or bad passing.
In the midfield we have improved because of Latapy, who is able to maintain possesion under pressure
Carlos, Whitley and to a lesser extent Birchald still gives the ball away frequently.
But Bennie has countered this by making us play a structured positional play with a safe number of players behind the ball.
We do not commit that many players forward as a team.
Stern John is still not playing well, His link up play is poor and he is not able to receive the long ball and bring the midfield into the game.
His link up play is what he needs to get back now that his confidence is on the rise.
The main reason for his increased Chance and Goals are as a result of Latapy.
Before teams would Key in there Defense on Stern and to a lesser extent Yorke because Yorke is now playing Deeper. But with Latapy in the fold he is able to make unbalancing runs in the middle which sucks defends out leaving Stern free to slot home.
These Dribbing runs by Latapy is creating space for our whole team to play.
Yorke is working hard to defense to make up for latapy he is doing a job for the team. His offense however is not existant hopefully he can get amoung the goals.
Whittley is playing well and getting more confedence to shoot etc must improve his passing efficency
birchald is steady, but we need to keep looking at playing him in various positions to see if we can get more out of him, Also maybe playing Theobald in the middle instead of him. The fact that he is quite means he is not there yet.
I dont know why Bennie always subs Whittley it may be fittness work rate related but sometimes we should Sub Birchald.
We have improved the results have improved but realistically speaking we are not the finished article.
We won the games we were expecting to win since last year looking into the Hex.
The 5 in Guatemala was a poor result,
The Mexico second 11 win was great but we did that on the road to 2002
Panama reults were expected but we still needed to execute.
We are still unable to beat Costa Rica
the Guatemala win showed fight which is all you can really ask for.
Chances are we will Beat Baharain.
We have demonstrated enough professionalism and execution under Bennie man for me to believe we will win.
The players believe in Bennie man and they believe his tactics will work.
He has simplyfied the game for us and used ket strengths and negated weaknesses.
He is a real big coach.
Hopefully we can make the world up and put the past behind us.
The best part would be the energy addition to the game in TnT and hopefully funding to follow.
Players wise we will be better in 4 years,
Jack, Charles, Birchald, Whitley, Theobald, Jones, Carlos, Sealy will still be there and improved from their current level.
Chances for 2010 looks good but the aim and plan must be for a top 3 finish.
Hopefully we make the world cup.
How we do in the world cup is not that important.
The Most important goal for TnT if and when we make the world cup should be
1) Funding for the National Football Academy
2) A rebirth of fan support to club football
3) Restructing of TnT football administration
4) Improved funding for youth team preparations
5) Improved funding and development for the women's game
Keep the wave going all the way to 2010.
