Anyone in Trini saw this interview with roger sant?
I was extremely impressed with Tiger, this yute is very well spoken, and you could see the passion in the man when he talking about T&T football.
Sometimes Roger Sant ask him a question with only about 5-6 words, and he answer for all of 10 mins, he had a lot on his mind and was definitely using this opportunity to voice his opinion on many things. Some included:
1) He cannot understand the deplorable state of the pitches in the stadia that held the U-17 WC just a few years ago. He says the training pitches are now much better than the stadia pitches, an embarassment for national teams to practise on. He hit out the renting of these grounds for fete matches. In some fairness, Roger S commented that SSFL, Pro-league, Super league etc were using the facilities, with sometimes more than 1 game every 24 hrs, and with plenty rain, that could contribute to the state of the fields as the long season ends. They both agree that renting out the grounds for concerts and fete matches should never happen though.
2) Tiger was talking about the impact Dwight had with the team, in terms of players' rights dealing with adminstration, maybe because of the respact they had for him. he says there are many things going on now that could never go on if he was still actively in the mix, eg. he says players griping cause the TTFF not even providing bandages for players to strap up, if u aint walk with your own, yuh loss out. In general, a very lackadasical, and non professional attitide of everyone involved.
3) He talked about being extremely disappointed about the hype of T&T in germany and perhaps we may have dropped the ball in terms of riding and building on that intensity to carry forward.
4) He was indirectly bashing the new FIFA rankings, but did make a good point that we dropping cause we not playing quality teams. I agree on this, if we play in a WC and cant get decent opposition right after, we dropping the ball. if our coach says we dont have the quality for local players to step up to play these harder games, then that is very worrying for me.
5) Spoke atlength about the politics in US football and how hard it is for caribbean ballers to break through, saying they discriminate against us because of pre-assumptions that we are not intense enough, too laid back, etc etc, plus T&T players usually use the MLS as a stepping stone for europe, so no long term investments there (good point). he talked about how marketing controls football, in that US national team players make 10 times what another player playing the same role and almost same quality makes...US stars are also given automatic picks on teams just for marketing, so if u competeing with a quality US player for a position, chances are u will find it very very hard.
6) Found it sad that some of the T&T players who dod so well in germany havent been offered big career moves, while some other teams with players who didnt do as well as them, ,got some really nice contracts (african players).
7) Was nostalgic about the "way it was" in his days a few years ago, with zonal competitions, feeding national screenings etc etc, much more fan involvement in the games, etc etc.
Says that the Digicel cup is of prime importance as T&T ahs to show the caribben that we are undoubtedly the number one team here, coming off the WC appearance.
