T&T U-20s saunter towards Egypt
By Lasana Liburd (T&T Express)
Youths get everything easy these days, don't they?
Nineteen years ago, it took the Dwight Yorke-led national under-20 team ten matches-eight wins, one draw and one defeat -to book a place at the 1991 World Youth Championships in Portugal. And, even then, they were forced to endure another nervous 90 minutes as Mexico defeated the United States 3-1 to ensure that Trinidad and Tobago and not the US qualified as the second best team.
Captain Leston Paul and his men are virtually there after just two games and with only one victory. Once Costa Rica do not lose to Canada this evening, Trinidad and Tobago will participate in the 2009 World Youth Championship in Egypt, no matter the results in their remaining three matches.
From the eight youth teams in Trinidad and Tobago at present, four will go on to the FIFA tournament, which suggests that it is as difficult to be eliminated from the qualifying series as it is to advance to the global showpiece.
They don't make these challenges the way they used to. It is no fault of Paul and company, of course, it is just the way of the world, I suppose
It is the era of cellphones for infants, secondary school for all and free music, movies, dictionaries and whatever else you can think of on the Internet. So, why not a World Cup that a team needs only one victory to qualify for?
It will be the second FIFA tournament for 12 of the present Trinidad and Tobago squad, who also participated in the 2007 Under-17 tournament in Korea. In that qualifying series, five of the last nine teams advanced.
Forty-year-old Russell Latapy, a local football icon and present player/ assistant coach, would have played in youth and senior World Cups by the time he was 21 with today's qualification standards, instead of just the one in Germany when he was a ripe, old 38.
And, yet, there is a certain beauty in the naivety of these teenagers too.
The belief that everything is not only possible but also uncomplicated has started the trend of teenage success stories across the globe, which is surely unparalleled in any previous generation.
So, although we acknowledge that Glenroy Samuel and Akeem Adams will accomplish in a trot what it took former standouts like Jerren Nixon and Angus Eve a marathon to finish, let us still wonder at the fearlessness of these football babies.
There was a saying that Trinidad and Tobago football teams start tripping over themselves with fear whenever their opponents spoke Spanish. But, on Monday, it was the hosts who dictated terms to a strong Costa Rican team-six members of the Costa Rica squad got to the second round of the 2007 Under-17 World Cup where they were eliminated 2-0 by Argentina.
At 7 p.m. today, the young "Soca Warriors" will trot on the Marvin Lee Stadium surface in Macoya, fully expecting a victory against Mexico. Is that not wonderful?
Sean de Silva and Qian Grosvenor might never fully appreciate the sacrifices made by the likes of Anthony Sherwood and Dean Pacheco to be part of the first English-speaking Caribbean team to qualify for a World Cup.
Just like no teenager in these parts can fathom a day, let alone an entire childhood, without a cellphone.
But their plucky spirits might be a lesson to us all and could make the world a much simpler place to live in. Let us hope that their courage is contagious.
