All I can think about is a poast I made when we were in the camp in Florida 2 weeks ago.
there is no way in hell you should be on the verge of a big tournament like this, with such a pedigree team, so much experience, preperation, etc etc and be losing to some no-name local community team from orlando.not from a national team.
Canada lost to that same team and are in the semi-finals. What's your point?
My point was that this close to the finals tournament, we should be getting better results if we are a truly quality team.
So whats your argument? Because Canada also lose to Ft Lauderdale, that mean we equal to Canada?
Let me tell you in case you didnt know, football is not 1+1 = 2, as beenhakker always said. If we use your logic, how in God's name we draw with Panama yet Mexico needed a very late goal to beat them 1-0, while we collect 7??
Football is played on the field, not based on mutal results. Football is goverened by the context in which it is played.. For all we know, Fort Lauderdale played a full strength team vs Canada and a bunch of trialists vs Trinidad...
At the end of the day, U-23 qualifying is real hard. We have never come close. Honduras is a real top team at this level, they won the competition twice, last series they beat the US in the US. Panama is always competitive, their youth teams have been very impressive over the last decade, and well Mexico is just world class. They just won the U17 WC, came in top 4 in the U20 or something so, plus the core of their team play in the Copa America last year...
I have NO PROBLEM whatsoevere with the results vs Honduras and Panama...Its the Mexico game that hurts.
Nothing wrong with having teams better than u, we were competitive in the last 2 games, but we collapsed in the first. I did not see the game, so I will not be too judgemental on Eve, maybe he should have made more tactical switches, some of the blame obviously lies with the players as they were the ones on the field...
This is the big difference betwene a pedigree, proven international coach and local coaches - the ability to mould a team that can keep shape, discipline and adjust when they ned to...
Man talking about how we cant do the basics and looking bun on the field and playing book kick football. If u take this T&T team and put them against lesser opposition, they will look like Brazil. But playing against a better team (mexico) who play fast one touch, high pressure game, we cannot do the things we usually do. thats why Barcelona look so good, they press insanely to put pressure on the opposition and make them give away possession and chase the game and get tired.
Out football philosophy is not Barcelona's nor is it Mexico's, it will never be. But if we are to compete with CONCACAF best, we have to figure out a way to better neutralise their strengths and promote ours. We have failed to do this over the last 50 years. The US has figured out how to do it. Canada has done on occassions. Jamaica and T&T have not.
We have 2 options now - wait till we produce another stream of very talented ballers like we did in the late 80's early 90's or we make an investment to get world class trainers and turn our average players now into competitive teams.
I much prefer the latter.
The first plan we tried and won tons of Digicel Cups and waltzed thru early WCQ rounds only to come up short.
The second plan with Beenhakker saw a very structured team assembled with experienced, average players. None of theose players had he raw talent of Evans Wise, Jerren Nixon, Leonson Lewis, terry St Louis, Arnold Dwarika etc, but look what happened (we also had some luck too and a spark with latas).