Maturana: I'll take the blame
After humbling 2-1 Bermuda loss...
Kern De Freitas kdefreitas@trinidadexpress.com
"I assume full responsibility, I absolve the players from responsibility and take it all upon myself."
These sober words from Trinidad and Tobago senior national coach Francisco Maturana following a woeful performance that saw them fall to a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Bermuda in their opening 2010 World Cup qualifier on Sunday at the Marvin Lee Stadium, Macoya, would have comforted few home fans.
T&T supporters would surely concur with Maturana's opening comments, in which he suggested at the media conference after the match through translator Filipo Alario: "this is the first game of the qualifiers left us definitely a bad taste in our mouths, with a pretty bad result."
Maturana's feeling, however, was that the result came not because of inability, or faulty tactics, but perhaps a sizeable helping of overconfidence.
"The problem is not how Bermuda played. The problem is how we played," Maturana said, adding that: "...the problem was more of an attitude issue than a tactical one."
"We did not find the clarity we had in the past games," he continued. We were too much in a hurry to reach the opponents' goal."
The loss left T&T within another poor result of crashing out of World Cup qualifying before they have properly began. This makes Sunday's return leg in Bermuda all the more important for the Colombian.
"This is definitely an initial overview because it is definitely not over. If we find the way we were playing before, we can turn around this result," he assured.
When asked what changes need to be made to get a favourable outcome away to the Bermudans, Maturana answered without hesitation.
"First and foremost, attitude, aggression, (and) the confidence to feel that one is better," he asserted.
On the other side, Bermuda's coach Kenneth Thompson was understandably elated with his team's win.
"We would have been happy with a point, we would have been happy for a draw, so we are happy to win," Thompson related after the match.
"We felt that Trinidad would come at us. We couldn't be sure, so we prepared ourselves for everything," he explained.
Bermuda, with nothing to lose, were also prepared to take the attack to T&T if given the chance, even though the coach admitted they were not sure what to expect from the hosts.
"We played to win, and football is like this. You have to prepare to attack, and we were prepared to attack, and (sometimes) you have to prepare to defend, and we were prepared to defend."
Thompson also revealed that his team were happy to play on the artificial surface at the Macoya venue, rather than the grass of the Hasely Crawford Stadium.
With a 2-1 lead going into the break, Bermuda even prepared themselves for an oncoming T&T onslaught.
"We expected Trinidad to come at us in the first ten minutes (of the second half) and we were prepared to weather the storm." Five days from now, it will be T&T's turn to weather the storm, or face an early exit to follow a successful Germany 2006 campaign.
