Beenhakker praises Warriors' teamwork
Kern De Freitas (Trinidad Express)
With Trinidad and Tobago winning their first match of the final round World Cup qualifiers for Germany 2006, new coach Leo Beenhakker has praised the Warriors, attributing their 2-0 victory over Panama to playing as a team.
The vastly-experienced coach, who has seen success with his native Holland and Real Madrid, was almost casual as he responded when asked how it felt to have the win, following the match at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on Saturday night.
"Yeah. When you win it feels good. I think that's normal," the coach replied, in a totally relaxed tone as someone quite familiar with such results.
But he gave all the credit to the T&T team, who were seen as the underdogs coming into the match.
"I have to congratulate the players, the team," Beenhakker said, "because as I told before the match, we only had five days together, and we did a lot of preparations, and they did during the whole week a very good job. And that they showed this afternoon, that they played like a real team. And it's a great result for us, for the team, because it means that we're still in the race for third place for the moment."
He was also full of praise for Dennis Lawrence, the lanky defender who scored midway through the second half to extend T&T's lead after Stern John got the opener in the 34th minute.
"Well, at least my neighbour on the right (Lawrence) was thinking to leave his defence and go for it as a striker, and after all it was a good decision. Just once, but never more," the Dutchman joked.
Although Lawrence admitted he would probably never score such a goal again, he said once the opportunity arrived, he realised he had to take it.
"It's just getting the perfect ball," Lawrence explained. "In the end, like a footballer, you've got to take chances. Whether it be the first minute, or the last minute, but I took a chance, and like it paid off in the end. And in the end we were looking for the perfect goal, fortunately enough it came from me.
"For me as a defender, whoever is in the crowd, they are going to be expecting me to miss because I'm a defender, so I'm under no pressure to score the goal."
Beenhakker is also confident the Warriors will be going all out for a win when they play away to group leaders Mexico on Wednesday.
"Well, we still need (to improve on) a lot of things, but for the moment, we are very happy with the result, and we know within four days we have another match and a very difficult match. Mexico is without doubt the best of this group, but...well at least we showed that we can play very strong, so we can play with a lot of confidence, looking for a good result over there, too," Beenhakker said.
