My analysis of the TT vs CR game

[Trini]

I'll be short.
I watch the game over at a partner's house yesterday on Telemundo, and I must say, I started to watch with a biased mentality, expecting to see anothet pathetic T&T display.

WAS I WRONG!

To those who havent see the game yet, AS will post it soon. But I must say, what I saw had me feeling some hope for the next 2 games.
Whenever we go to CR, the atmosphere, the altitude and the history usually defeats us from the start. Even in 89, up to 2001, when we played there, CR would run through our team like a knife thru butter, making it look like college vs primary school fellas playing. It would be pretty much be one way traffic, and we in dire straits for 85% of the game.

This last game was very different.

TT actually competed with CR for most, if not all the game.
After 10 mins, Spann, Latas, Yorke, Birchall were all battling very good, and we were matching them, even so far.
Just before the CR goal, Latas play a nice ball into Stern but he muffed his chance. We were playing well. You could see the confidence in the guys from the previuos game, and the chemistry was improving all the time.
Then Bam! CR flukey goal after Cox get rinse on the left back position.
That CR player Ronal Gomez is real tears yes! He could make a CONCACAF all star team, he was everywhere, remind me of the Mexican small midfielder, Pardo.
CR had the better chances, but we were playing well too, just not as clear cut chances as them, but we were matching them, player for player, and we were not folding under the CR onslaught. We were pelting real blade too yes, good to see, but at times, on the border of rough play. We kinda look like Ja at cartain times, u could see we had the CR players a little nervvous. Spann aint take no prisoners nah.
I was hearing the rhythm section like if it was in TT the game was playing, so that was nice. The grass look real nice, I see Wanchope playing in a kinda turf trainers.
Somewhere around the 28 min, we get a throw and the man throw it into Latas on the right wing, just out the CR box, I see Latas kill the throw in dead on his left thigh, leaning toward the corner flag with a defender hot on him. Then i aint know how he do it, but the ball jus seem to switch to his right thing as he shifted his balance, next thing he was cutting to the inside, all before the bal hit the floor. The CR defender had no choice to pull him down. Itr didnt look like much, but they reply it, and I know I was watching a man of greatness in action.
Birchall had a nice shot, brilliantly saved by the keeper. Birchall is a must in any TT team, he fights the game like no other. he gives energy to the rest of players and does the simple right things. He needs to work on his poise though, he will get better playing with latas, age and experience.He sometimes gets excited and over hits the ball, or forces the passes. But he fight and fights and fights and supports the play always. And he has a heck of a shot with that right foot.
The goalscorer, the no 19 Saborio get real rough up by Dog, he look kinda scared sometimes, like he never meet a defender like that before, and he kinda smallie too, so you could imagine.
But as the game wore on, Gomez was neutralised and TT actually finished the first half dominating.
Second half start same, kinda equal, they score a real beauty dread. Few keepers in the world woulda save that, that was nice. After the goal, still relatively early in the second, we went in a lill phase of lazy play, giving away the ball, sloppy etc etc. It was threatening to turn into a textbook TT vs CR away game of one way traffic and TT getting carved open at will like a fish being gutted.
But to the credit of the warriors, we battle back well, even 2-0 down, we found it not to get over run but actually start back battling and being an even game.
You could see this team had grown leaps and bounds from the team that got 5 in Guat.
I counted a couple times, we string 5-6 passes together, culminating in a shot or chance at goal.
Sealy and Scotland has the impact of injecting life into the team, but poor finishing let us down.
I counted at least 4 good half chances we had in the game. The game ended with us peppering their goal at will, it was the worse display of goal kick taking I saw from the CR goalie and defender, we were just picking up the ball and running straight back down their throat. But the finishing let us down.
Stern didnt really throw away any glaring chances, but he played solid, esp in the second, he fight the game, and u could actually see the gameplan used by TT - Stern as the target man up centre and the other players feeding off him. Every move he make, he had a man marker.
Sealy and Scotland throw away some nice chances, but I guess, so it go.
ALl in all, we finish real strong, u could see the fight.
These fellas aint dead yet.
If we could play so in panama, we could get a win.

Jack - Good solid game, could do nothing about the 2 goals.
Dog - Played like Dog as usual, fight to the death,
Lawrence - Solid and cool game.
Spann - He is impressing me so much recently. I initially though he didnt have it to be a international baller as he was playing kinda like Rahim, but he has gotten stronger physically, better first touch and making some real  nice overlapping wing runs now. Good crossing too. He is a must.
Cox - Glad Avery coming back. He play good, but u could see a difference between him and the other 3 defenders, as well as his midfielder link man.
Dwight - Very good game as usual, cool, calm, class and fight like a demon.
Latas - Pure class and skill, was creating openings, look good esp on the left wing.
Birchall - A must, needs to work on his poise, but he is essential to the team guts. remind me of a white boy in high school who also play school ball, not that much skill, and we used to tun him up whole game with shake, but u could bet he quick to recover and coming back hard to clean you up, so u better get rid of the ball. Play smart too, saw him commit a real smart and dirty foul midway in the second half on a CR breakaway, then play like he injured jus not to get the second yellow.
Whitely - Slowing improving. He getting back some confidence. Saw a nice lill piece of skill shaking up 2-3 men in the first half by the laft corner flag, Whitely 4 games ago woulda never do that. He need s alill more patience on the ball, he always looking for that one 50 yard defence splitting pass. He perhaps can do it at Pro League more often, but it harder to do here. But he doing the small things good, linking up well with the other midfielders etc etc. Should start again.
Edwards - He is our saviour on the right wing. He will torment any left back, crossing has improved tremendously, and so too his defensive workrate. Simply put, the best midfield winger we have. He also has a real nice chemistry with Spann, at least from what I heard in the commentary vs Guat, even in this game he was linking well with his wingback.
John - Usual stern, quiet, plenty running down ball and ball to his head. But u could see a fight in his game now and his confidence. Couple times he got the ball, turn on the top of the box and with options to his side, he only had eyes for goal to shoot. He will start the next 2 games of course. With him and Sealy and Scotland up front, and latas and edwards  and Yorke feeding them, we were causing problems for Costa Rica.
Sealy - Came on and throw away 2 easy chance, steups. But he cause problems. I have a sneaky feeling he owe us a goal very soon. Same way I feel when everyone in the chatroom was cussing for Stern to come off midway through the second half vs Guatemala, and I just take an about turn and say that he should stay on, as he will score before the game done. The numbers game always peters out.

Fellas, I see team chemistry coming together, too bad, it shoulda start since Ash Wed.
But we play good, perhaps the best I have seen up play in CR.
At the end of the day, it aint worth shite, as we get a 2-0 beating. But we could beat Panama on the road.
The team playing well.
We just have to keep it up and hope for a lill luck that any team wanting to go WC will always need.
If we was playing similar to this now, we woulda never lose on Ash Wed to the US, we mighta inevitably loss in Guat, but not by no stinking 5-1.
We also would have beaten CR in TT.
In other words, we playing like a team on 10 pts now.
4 weeks away!

[samo]

I agree with what yuh saying. I saw the match yeaterday and expected to see a game like USA vs. T&T in Hartford, but I was wrong. I was impressed under all the circumstances how we played. CR first goal was kinda flukey, but that is happend. 2nd goal, Jack had no chance.. We are definitly improving and I can see us beating Panama and Mexico is we keep up the intensity for 90 min. The longer Beenhaker has with the team the more we will improve.

[Trini]

Its kinda like the repeat of when Porterfield was fired and Simoes took over.
Started to see some tangible changes.

Also at this level, it may look lucky yes, but you are always as good as your results.

We always giving up unlucky goals.
The USA always seeming to score lucky goals.

Good teams make their own so called "luck"
Bad teams stem the flow of stupid goals.

When you score game winners more than once in injury time, or even very late in games, as the US seems to have a knack for, it becomes more than luck.

LUCKY IS GOOD

[Sam]

Mine Here

Kelvin Jack - Made some decent saves, he could not stop both goals. I think he needs to work on free kicks though.

Ian Cox - Made 2 mistakes, one, he didn’t cover Gomez leading to the first goal and the other is he almost scored an own goal from a header clearance, is he left footed by chance. I find he did ok other than that, he did save us a few times and combined well with Birchall. But Avery is best in that position.

Dennis Lawrence - Was quiet, but helped, I guess he didn’t make to much runs forwards because he was the last defender.

Marvin Andrews - Look good on the right back going forward, but this man real clumsy at times. Sancho was missed.

Silvio Spann - You could tell he dont have a left foot because every time he got the ball he was switching it to his right foot. I still like him over Theobald and Rahim on the left if we have to use him there.

Dwight Yorke - As usual, worked his boots off.

Aurtis Whitley - Show some nice touch running forward, but needs to be more penetrative and take more shots on goal.

Carlos Edwards - I was expecting more from him, he did nothing much, I dont know why Beenhakker broke up the Spann/Edwards combo. Why fix something if its not broken.

Chris Birchall - Work his ass off, but needs to be more confident and composed on the ball. Have a strong shot and should use it when ever he gets the chance, his work rate is also very high and adds iron in midfield.

Russell Latapy - Why Beenhakker started him on top, I really dont know, when he came back in midfield under the strikers he looked better.

Stern John - Did better that his usual games, had a nice flick on for I think Scotland to score, he also had a nice one time shot on goal and this is a good sign, once he gets more confidence and up his work rate and take more shots on goal he will do much better. Like Edwards/Spann combo I believe Stern needs a good combo partner to feed off and one who will support him and he will also do great.

Jason Scotland - Had a nice one time shot that hit the side netting, and look capable of helping the team.

Scott Sealy - I liked his eagerness to shoot and that is a good sign, he just needs to learn how to hit them at goal and not in the stands.

I find the team didn’t play badly, and we match the Costa Ricans and look better at times, but for a coach with so much experience he should know better, this is not Holland, we are limited in certain position, one or two players out and we guessing who to use where, we should know this in advance. We also didn’t look like we were playing with a plan, and why does one goal kill the team like this, we have 4 coaches all together and none of them can motivate the players ? I am disappointed in Beenhakker tactics because when you play away especially when you are short in defence you have to compromise and use a formation to cover your weakness, we needed to set the first 15 mins tone of the game and then settle in and play to our style.

We was better of going with 4-5-1;
Jack
Charles, Andrews, Lawrence, Cox
Spann, Birchall, Latapy, Yorke, Whitley
John

Simply because we needed to either win or tie this game, we should have scored at least 2 goals and tie up de score. The team I name above is a good team who can keep possession and switch to difference formation without interfering with the team structure and play.

Panama have a bone to pick with us and they fighting for pride, we must be careful, they have nothing to lose, they are missing they best defender Baloy who is based in Brazil, Ricardo Phillips is good to and according to Tallman, Reberto Brown will also miss this game so we need to exploit this, but be careful because they have a number 10 (Medina) who is very nippy and they are also very good at home. They goalie is a classic, so Stern put on yuh correct boots. We have a better chance of beating PAN that MEX, so this game is a must....

Mexico also cannot be trusted, they will never make T&T beat them because they have to much pride and also they will plan to win all their games to claim the standings, they hate USA and they will make sure they finish over them.

According to Flex, USA must beat Costa Rica so Costa Rica will have to beat Guatemala in their last game and Mexico must beat Guatemala and T&T will get some breeding space, but we still need to focused on winning both games.

[palos]

I'll be short.
I watch the game over at a partner's house yesterday on Telemundo, and I must say, I started to watch with a biased mentality, expecting to see anothet pathetic T&T display.

WAS I WRONG!

To those who havent see the game yet, AS will post it soon. But I must say, what I saw had me feeling some hope for the next 2 games.
Whenever we go to CR, the atmosphere, the altitude and the history usually defeats us from the start. Even in 89, up to 2001, when we played there, CR would run through our team like a knife thru butter, making it look like college vs primary school fellas playing. It would be pretty much be one way traffic, and we in dire straits for 85% of the game.

This last game was very different.

TT actually competed with CR for most, if not all the game.
After 10 mins, Spann, Latas, Yorke, Birchall were all battling very good, and we were matching them, even so far.
Just before the CR goal, Latas play a nice ball into Stern but he muffed his chance. We were playing well. You could see the confidence in the guys from the previuos game, and the chemistry was improving all the time.
Then Bam! CR flukey goal after Cox get rinse on the left back position.
That CR player Ronal Gomez is real tears yes! He could make a CONCACAF all star team, he was everywhere, remind me of the Mexican small midfielder, Pardo.
CR had the better chances, but we were playing well too, just not as clear cut chances as them, but we were matching them, player for player, and we were not folding under the CR onslaught. We were pelting real blade too yes, good to see, but at times, on the border of rough play. We kinda look like Ja at cartain times, u could see we had the CR players a little nervvous. Spann aint take no prisoners nah.
I was hearing the rhythm section like if it was in TT the game was playing, so that was nice. The grass look real nice, I see Wanchope playing in a kinda turf trainers.
Somewhere around the 28 min, we get a throw and the man throw it into Latas on the right wing, just out the CR box, I see Latas kill the throw in dead on his left thigh, leaning toward the corner flag with a defender hot on him. Then i aint know how he do it, but the ball jus seem to switch to his right thing as he shifted his balance, next thing he was cutting to the inside, all before the bal hit the floor. The CR defender had no choice to pull him down. Itr didnt look like much, but they reply it, and I know I was watching a man of greatness in action.
Birchall had a nice shot, brilliantly saved by the keeper. Birchall is a must in any TT team, he fights the game like no other. he gives energy to the rest of players and does the simple right things. He needs to work on his poise though, he will get better playing with latas, age and experience.He sometimes gets excited and over hits the ball, or forces the passes. But he fight and fights and fights and supports the play always. And he has a heck of a shot with that right foot.
The goalscorer, the no 19 Saborio get real rough up by Dog, he look kinda scared sometimes, like he never meet a defender like that before, and he kinda smallie too, so you could imagine.
But as the game wore on, Gomez was neutralised and TT actually finished the first half dominating.
Second half start same, kinda equal, they score a real beauty dread. Few keepers in the world woulda save that, that was nice. After the goal, still relatively early in the second, we went in a lill phase of lazy play, giving away the ball, sloppy etc etc. It was threatening to turn into a textbook TT vs CR away game of one way traffic and TT getting carved open at will like a fish being gutted.
But to the credit of the warriors, we battle back well, even 2-0 down, we found it not to get over run but actually start back battling and being an even game.
You could see this team had grown leaps and bounds from the team that got 5 in Guat.
I counted a couple times, we string 5-6 passes together, culminating in a shot or chance at goal.
Sealy and Scotland has the impact of injecting life into the team, but poor finishing let us down.
I counted at least 4 good half chances we had in the game. The game ended with us peppering their goal at will, it was the worse display of goal kick taking I saw from the CR goalie and defender, we were just picking up the ball and running straight back down their throat. But the finishing let us down.
Stern didnt really throw away any glaring chances, but he played solid, esp in the second, he fight the game, and u could actually see the gameplan used by TT - Stern as the target man up centre and the other players feeding off him. Every move he make, he had a man marker.
Sealy and Scotland throw away some nice chances, but I guess, so it go.
ALl in all, we finish real strong, u could see the fight.
These fellas aint dead yet.
If we could play so in panama, we could get a win.

Jack - Good solid game, could do nothing about the 2 goals.
Dog - Played like Dog as usual, fight to the death,
Lawrence - Solid and cool game.
Spann - He is impressing me so much recently. I initially though he didnt have it to be a international baller as he was playing kinda like Rahim, but he has gotten stronger physically, better first touch and making some real  nice overlapping wing runs now. Good crossing too. He is a must.
Cox - Glad Avery coming back. He play good, but u could see a difference between him and the other 3 defenders, as well as his midfielder link man.
Dwight - Very good game as usual, cool, calm, class and fight like a demon.
Latas - Pure class and skill, was creating openings, look good esp on the left wing.
Birchall - A must, needs to work on his poise, but he is essential to the team guts. remind me of a white boy in high school who also play school ball, not that much skill, and we used to tun him up whole game with shake, but u could bet he quick to recover and coming back hard to clean you up, so u better get rid of the ball. Play smart too, saw him commit a real smart and dirty foul midway in the second half on a CR breakaway, then play like he injured jus not to get the second yellow.
Whitely - Slowing improving. He getting back some confidence. Saw a nice lill piece of skill shaking up 2-3 men in the first half by the laft corner flag, Whitely 4 games ago woulda never do that. He need s alill more patience on the ball, he always looking for that one 50 yard defence splitting pass. He perhaps can do it at Pro League more often, but it harder to do here. But he doing the small things good, linking up well with the other midfielders etc etc. Should start again.
Edwards - He is our saviour on the right wing. He will torment any left back, crossing has improved tremendously, and so too his defensive workrate. Simply put, the best midfield winger we have. He also has a real nice chemistry with Spann, at least from what I heard in the commentary vs Guat, even in this game he was linking well with his wingback.
John - Usual stern, quiet, plenty running down ball and ball to his head. But u could see a fight in his game now and his confidence. Couple times he got the ball, turn on the top of the box and with options to his side, he only had eyes for goal to shoot. He will start the next 2 games of course. With him and Sealy and Scotland up front, and latas and edwards  and Yorke feeding them, we were causing problems for Costa Rica.
Sealy - Came on and throw away 2 easy chance, steups. But he cause problems. I have a sneaky feeling he owe us a goal very soon. Same way I feel when everyone in the chatroom was cussing for Stern to come off midway through the second half vs Guatemala, and I just take an about turn and say that he should stay on, as he will score before the game done. The numbers game always peters out.

Fellas, I see team chemistry coming together, too bad, it shoulda start since Ash Wed.
But we play good, perhaps the best I have seen up play in CR.
At the end of the day, it aint worth shite, as we get a 2-0 beating. But we could beat Panama on the road.
The team playing well.
We just have to keep it up and hope for a lill luck that any team wanting to go WC will always need.
If we was playing similar to this now, we woulda never lose on Ash Wed to the US, we mighta inevitably loss in Guat, but not by no stinking 5-1.
We also would have beaten CR in TT.
In other words, we playing like a team on 10 pts now.
4 weeks away!

Is a good ting yuh decide to be short...