No time for complacency.
By: Fazeer Mohammed (Express).
Wednesday night's victory didn't avenge anything, even partially. It was about battling to stay on course for South Africa 2010, full stop. That the opponents were the United States made the taste all the sweeter, but a first-ever defeat of the Americans in a senior World Cup qualifier would have been decidedly hollow if it wasn't in the context of furthering our ambitions of making it to football's "Big Yard" again.
It must have been something really special for Russell Latapy and Dwight Yorke, the two enduring campaigners from that never-to-be-forgotten 1989 experience, to score the goals that earned Trinidad and Tobago three vital points against the USA.
Still, even as it would also have doubled as an emphatic response to skeptics like yours truly about the wisdom of relying so heavily on two such senior players, I doubt very much that the satisfaction of success now can ever erase the anguish of what transpired 19 years ago, given the full appreciation of what the Italia '90 campaign meant to the country and how the very public recriminations that followed November 19, 1989 left so many feeling betrayed and utterly disillusioned.
So it's a different time and very different circumstances, and we must look forward to the immediate challenge that lies ahead before casting eyes further beyond the horizon, if all goes well, to ten tough games in the final phase of CONCACAF qualification that will certainly dominate our 2009 sporting calendar. Yet for all that, it cannot be sheer coincidence that we are once again drawn towards a significant period of our past by the fact that the national team need just a point (you almost hesitate to say it, don't you?) against Cuba at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on November 19 to be confirmed as one of the six nations that will be duelling for the three places available to the region for direct access to the World Cup finals. Of course, there is the additional option for the fourth-placed team of a playoff, this time with the fifth-placed squad from South America. But no coach, player or fan in his or her right mind targets such an opportunity from so far away, for such low expectation is surely a recipe for ultimate failure.
That's why, having gotten the Yankee monkey off our backs, even if it wasn't their full-strength squad, we cannot afford to relax ahead of the Cuba game, both for reasons of that gut-wrenching 19-year-old piece of history and the ability of the underdogs to pull off a major upset.
News of the home team's stunning 2-1 victory over Guatemala in Havana merely intensified the celebrations in Port of Spain, but it should also have sent a very clear message that taking the cellar-placed Spanish islanders lightly when they come to town could be a critical error of judgment.
Again, just for the sake of perspective, we must keep in mind that all of the emotional ups and downs of the last few months in following the World Cup qualifying journey are related to the SEMI-FINAL phase of the campaign. It's not as if, should the result go our way, people will be pouring out onto the streets in celebration after the final whistle against Cuba, even though making it to the last stage of the campaign for the fifth time in 13 World Cups is in itself cause for satisfaction.
Yes, satisfaction. But surely not uninhibited jubilation, for after getting to Germany less than four years ago, it would somehow be very demeaning of ourselves to greet arrival at the final base camp in the challenging ascent to South Africa 2010 as if it were the same as scaling the summit itself.
It's the same thing for followers of West Indies cricket, for how could those who were fortunate to experience the halcyon days of utter dominance in the 1980s be moved by the sporadic achievement here and there by the current crop, either individually or collectively? Did taking on England in that expensive fete match on June 1 at the Hasely Crawford Stadium stir the blood at all compared to battling the same opponents manfully in Nuremberg at the 2006 World Cup finals?
To everything there is a season, and while the euphoria in the aftermath of defeating the Americans is as much about seeking some form of escape from the drudgery and increasing dangers of everyday existence as it is about celebrating a significant milestone in our World Cup history, now is not yet the time to have a feast at the completion of the harvest.
Those fruits won't properly ripen for at least another year. In the meantime, we must show the same sort of agrarian diligence that will save us from the apparent inevitability of higher food prices by tending to this cream of the footballing crop.
Yes, after Wednesday night, the flowers are blooming again, even from the couple of trees that have satisfied our local appetite for the beautiful game for almost two decades now. But as any farmer worth his salt pellets would know, negligence or complacency at this stage is a sure-fire recipe for failure. If anything, the work only gets harder from now on and we should be expected to bend our backs even more in the blazing sun. Unless, of course, we prefer to devour the force-ripe belly-wuk stuff instead of doing what is necessary to ensure we savour the real thing later down the road.
fazeer2001@hotmail.com
