Wrong team selected
Experts bemoan T&T's Caribbean Cup flop
Lasana Liburd (Trinidad Express)
Tuesday, December 9th 2008
Two-time Colombia World Cup coach Francisco Maturana on Sunday became the first coach in Trinidad and Tobago's football history who could not get the "Soca Warriors" out of the group phase of a Caribbean Cup tournament.
The Express sought the opinion of several of the country's respected football minds and found a consensus that Maturana's selections were at fault.
"I understand that no two coaches would pick exactly the same team," said W. Connection coach Stuart Charles-Fevrier, "but I just feel there should be more principle and criteria involved in selecting the national team.
"To me the whole selection process has been undermined."
Fevrier was particularly unimpressed with Maturana's midfield, which he felt was "unbalanced" and contributed to the team's poor offensive showing.
He insisted that Connection midfielder Aurtis Whitley was unfit, while free agent Khaleem Hyland, a ball winner while at CLICO San Juan Jabloteh last year, was not suited to a playmaker's role and missed the edge provided by regular competitive football.
"It is the same mistake (Maturana) made with Densill Theobald (against the USA) when he used him in a role he is not suited to and then dropped him," said Fevrier. "Khaleem Hyland is a good player but the player behind the lone striker is supposed to score and set up goals. It is the role of a number 10 and I am surprised that they used him there when (Arnold) Dwarika and (Andre) Toussaint are in the squad.
"I cannot understand why Maturana is not seeing that and Anton (Corneal) is right there and he should know the players."
Clayton Morris, a former national stand-out and vice-president of the Football Players Association of Trinidad and Tobago (FPATT), said he felt underwhelmed when the team headed to Jamaica.
"It is the first time a national team left to play in this competition and I didn't have faith that the team would at least reach to the last four," said Morris, who also coaches the national indoor team. "When I looked at the preparation and the combination of players selected, I was not happy and I didn't think it fair to some players who are at their peak but were not selected."
Morris named the Jabloteh midfield duo of Trent Noel and Marvin Oliver and prolific Defence Force striker Devon Jorsling as the most glaring absences, while he felt that Whitley and bmobile Joe Public defender Seon Power did not do enough to merit selection so soon after lengthy absences due to injury.
Jabloteh coach Terry Fenwick, who again bemoaned the absence of his versatile captain Noel, pointed to the recent call-ups for Wales-based winger Josh Johnson, Joe Public veteran Arnold Dwarika and Lebanon-based Errol McFarlane as supposed evidence of the national team's scattergun selection policy.
"My view is that there is some great talent in Trinidad and Tobago that is being overlooked and particularly from Jabloteh," he said. "And that shows the technical staff are not doing their job and I am not just talking about the coach but also the people around him.
"The preparation and team selection for this competition was awful and for us to be beaten by the likes of Grenada is unacceptable."
United Petrotrin technical director Edgar Vidale, who coached the national team at the 1991 Gold Cup, also scratched his head at sudden surprise call-ups and omissions.
"We are not a country where top-class players drop out of the sky," said Vidale. "By now, he should have a nucleus of players and forget about experimentation. Those who are good enough have been seen.
"Get your ideas on to a nucleus of players and let them practise with it."
The national players generally escaped the flak for the team's early exit.
"This is one time I don't want to lash any particular player," said Morris. "They didn't select themselves so it is the technical staff that has to take the blame... When last can you remember us doing well as a team even going back to the World Cup qualifiers?
"The team hasn't been performing but what has been covering that up is that they were getting results. The writing was on the wall all the time."
