The problem was fitness and tactics.
If you could go Central America and score 2 in a WCQ, it dont get much better than that.
Up till about 70 mins, we were having a very good game, the only real blot was Stern penalty miss.
But at this level, 11 vs 11, you should not concede 2 goals in the last 10 mins or so.
Fitness was the main factor, our players just stop doing the things that we were doing in the first half, ie running into space and creating passing lanes and keeping the ball in the middle of the field. I thought we were very good at doing that in the first half.
The age of the guys showed. Once you get tired, you commit unnecessary fouls, as you lose concentration and play more desperate.
Our fitness has always been one of our weaknesses.
Next thing - TACTICS.
I know we made our 3 subs when Stern came off, but this is the classic case of why Leo Beenhakker is a different quality to people liike Bertille and Maturana. People cuss Beenie when he never play Latapy in the WC, I bet if Beenie was in charge last night, we would have held that lead to win the game.
Yorke was beginning to be a liability coming to the end. Remember in the game vs Bahrain and Sweden how the T&T team played to kill time - possession and take the ball to the corner. Where was that last night. It seemed everytime we got the ball we tried to go straight up the middle and score. Why try to outshoot an opponent when u already leading them 2-0? Take the ball to the flanks, hold up the ball and run the clock.
The team is experienced enough to know to do this, I personally feels it comes back down to fatigue. Your mind knows what to do, but the body cant do it.
Its always hindsight to say what should have been done. And you could say the best way to defend is to attack. But Glen for Stern, with KJ already on the field made no sense with 20 mins to go. Why not bring on Denzil? Or have KJ drop back much more deep? He used to play stopper for T&T at one point. All we needed was him to play midfield and be behind the ball. We definitely need to work on the one attacker up front thing, cause with El Salvador pouring forward, there were holes to be exploited, especially by a player like Glen.
Anyways, its done now, 2 pts lost, but at least we got a point. We absolutely need to beat Honduras.
Me aint care who play, if Latas bite bench, i dont care, we need a 1-0 result.
Its hard to take, but if they had offered us a point before the game started, we would have gladly taken it....
My concern is that it doesnt affect the players psychologically...cause we all know how T&T performs based on momentum.
Bad starts usually end is disastrous campaigns - the exception being 2005
Good starts usually end with us doing very well.
