OK peeps, I made my way to the game yesterday and here are my thoughts on what i witnessed. First off, apologies because I am NOT familiar with the players enough to know their names. In attendance was fellow Soca Warriors.net/Warrior nation crew Candytt, Weary and her group and I later spied JahGol above us. Well while i arrived about 5 mins late, it seems I didn't miss much. Now a little aside, when i witnessed this Under-20 team against their Bajan counterparts a few weeks ago, my initial thoughts were "this team will not go far" and this was because they were simply NOT putting away their chances against clearly inferior opposition (no disrespect to Barbados, just calling a spade a spade)...I mentioned same to Touches and a few others. Well the Dominican republic was MARGINALLY better than Barbados and in the opening minutes of last night's game T&T laid seige to their opponents goal! We created raid after raid and the DR's goak-keeper was kept quite busy in the opening 15 minutes as T&T clearly settled well early along. There were 3-4 corners won by T&T, ALL of which resulted in goal-mouth scrambles, but sadly NO goals. Fouls on our players resulted in numerous free-kick opportunities just outside the box...ALL were wasted in my opinion, because they were either over-bar or wide and did NOT force a save from the DR goal-keeper! One man below us muttered " Allyuh wastin' too much chances bwoy, yuh goh pay fuh that!"...these would turn out to be prophetic words!!! The pattern of play continued for most of the 1st half and FINALLY T&T got the go-ahead goal with a sweetly taken free-kick from Captain R. Abu Bakr!!! It came just a few mins before the end of the 1/2, in the 44th min I think.
In the 2nd half, play was more evenly balanced as the #10 for DR came on after warming up for MOST of the 1st 1/2 :} He was a speedy player and the DR simply pumped the long ball to good effect and they actually managed to threaten T&T forcing a couple saves from our gk! Realising that the tide was changing Brian Williams made his first sub, again I'm sorry i don't know the names, and there was no announcer over the loud-speaker to idenitify the players. But alas the #13 who came on was a DEFENDER and he replaced the right-back who had injured his shoulder late in the forst period. Apparently the coach was going to defend our 1 goal advantage IT SEEMED to me??? two final subs by T&T could NOT alter our fate. Well when the DR pressure finally paid off from a classic counter-attack using the long ball as our boys pushed forward, it was NO surprise that the final score was 1-1. Since SVG defeated St kitts 1-0 in the earlier game, T&T MUST now WIN BOTH it's next 2 games!!!
Some interesteing Moments - T&T's Captain for the night Radanfar Abu Bakr was clearly our man of the match, not only did he score our ONLY goal, but he also dramatically headed off the line a CERTAIN goal-bound shot which had beaten our keeper! His lack of pace is an issue, but we (T&T) must work with him, because his size, height, heading ability and MOST of all his free-kick taking are all pros for us to develop to our benefit.
Another CRAZY moment came when T&T MISTAKENLY THOUGHT they'd scored a second goal, but did NOT realise that the ref's assistant had waved the off-side flag! So while NINE of our players were busy celebrating the "non-goal", DR launched a quick counter-attack with FOUR of them bearing down on ONE T&T stopper and the GK!!! Fortunately, the player in possession of the ball over-pushed in his excitement and a VERY embarassing goal was avoided!!!
As most of the crowd would attest, the standard of referring was PISS POOR!!! This was most dramatically shown when after a foul on one of our players, some pushing and shoving started amongst a group of players, IN FULL VIEW OF THE REFEREE and he did NOTHING, just STOOD there, seemingly HELPLESS!! it was a pathetic sight and was probably overshadowed only by the final whistle, which came IMMEDIATELY after one of our players was VICIOUSLY hacked down on the wing and EVERYONE else in the stadium expected final free-kick opportunity!
But bad officiating aside, T&T SHOULD have won this game! I feel a sense of "Deja Vu", because I see the EXACT pattern emerging when our Under 21's failed to get past caribbean opposition for the CAC games earlier this yeara nd were eventually HAMMERED by HAITI...I HOPE I AM wrong, and will be at tomorrow's game with re-newed expectation!!! Coach Williams was seen KICKING away a ball in frustration towards the end of the game as he saw his charges throw away yet again!!!! I feel sorry for him, because I KNOW him to be a good, commited coach and I feel his instructions were simply NOT carried out! One T&T supporter shouted to him over and over Coach, "Ras they NOT using the RIGHT side at all, is only Left, left, left and the DR team readin' the play right through!".
Let me end on a light note, apparently Lester peltier's nickname is "corncurls", which was shouted repeatedly by a VERY overjealous female T&T supporter who at one time threatened the referee, the DR team, their bench and ANYBODY who dared do/say ANYthing untoward to her favorite "snack" LOL. A man below me said " Oh gosh girl, dat is not a name to call the man in public". Also thanks to candytt who for reminding me about the brief spanish lesson I had to give one of our supporters who tried in vain to get the DR coach to sit down by telling him it in what can only be described as "Trini Spanglish"... here are some excerpts - "Coachee SitARSE por favor" "SEINTATE Coche" and another one which I will leave to your imagination but involes a donkey's rear end .... AH See why I can't live ANYwere else BUT IN T&T!!!
Ah love it @ A.SAMUEL!!!
Patriot out
If anyone has any questions on anything i may have missed OR those who were there care to add, feel free, I'll be on-line later today
