Adoring fans welcome Soca Warriors in Vienna.
By: Shaun Fuentes (ttff). Trinidad and Tobago’s senior footballers were greeted by several young Austrian football fans running to meet them as they came off the team bus for their first training session at the KSC Donestaudt training center in Vienna following their arrival there earlier on Monday ahead of Wednesday’s friendly international against Austria.
With a slight drizzle and the “Soca Warriors” dressed to suit the extreme chilly conditions, the kids left their parents behind and rushed towards the bus the moment they caught sight of it as they collected signatures and those who were lucky with their parents, snapped photos before head coach Wim Rijsbergen conducted a one hour session.
The local-based contingent including the players and members of staff departed Piarco International Airport on Sunday evening before meeting the overseas-based pros in London, eventually arriving in Vienna close to 4pm (11am T&T time). It was T&T’s first return to Europe (outside of London) since their display at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. The team had also previously stayed in Bad Radkersburg, Austria for a training camp prior to the FIFA Finals.
Austria, ranked 74th, six places higher than T&T on the FIFA world rankings, will be aiming to produce a winning performance before their home fans as they warm up towards their co-hosting of the 2008 Euro Championships and Rijsbergen is all too willing to face the challenge.
“Like them and other countries at this time, we will be using the game as preparation for future competitions and we will be aiming to give a good account,” Rijsbergen said as the team checked into the Marriot Hotel, Vienna.
“Ideally we would like to play matches on each of the FIFA international dates and that’s one of the things that we are trying to look into but you never know what will happen so when these kind of games come up, you have to make the best of them. The same goes for when we could have played Mexico back in September. They wanted to play us but they wanted to play our best team and the same goes for other countries. We are missing a couple players for this game, for instance Dwight, but we have a good team still and this will give us a chance to see how good a performance and result we can get in this one,” he added.
Coventry City midfielder Chris Birchall, though out of his club’s line up last couple matches, is intent on helping T&T make its mark, particularly against the European teams.
“It’s always good when we get the chance to play the teams in Europe because people are more aware of what’s happening with your team just like it was for us at the World Cup. I can’t imagine how we could drop to 80 on the rankings after going to a World Cup and then also winning our last two games. So then maybe it means they judge this thing according to who you play and obviously your results. Regardless of that, I think we just need to play a decent game and get a good result and that will be perfect for us especially away from home,” Birchall told TTFF Media.
“It’s good to see guys like Aurtis (Whitley) and Densill (Theobald) back in the team because for me it seems like I’ve been playing so long with them even though on Thursday is going to be only a year since we got to the World Cup. And we still have a few other guys missing so I definitely think we can get better as a team looking ahead to the future.”
The only hiccup was the late unavailability of defender Dwayne Jack who is on trial at English club Wycombe Wanderers. His absence, due to problems in attaining his travel documents, means Rijsbergen will go into the game with 17 players who all arrived and trained in Vienna on Monday. John meantime, still carrying slightly healed deep cut to his ankle was not expected to train on Monday but he braved the conditions and went through the session. He may sit out Tuesday’s double sessions but will be available for Wednesday’s game at the Ernst Happel Stadium which kicks off at 8:30 pm (3:30pm T&T time).
