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Offline SWF Reporter

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Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« on: November 21, 2012, 09:54:45 PM »
Why Corneal does a disservice to local football
By Lasana Liburd (Wired868.com)


As a former national football and cricket player and coach, Alvin Corneal enjoys a well-deserved status as a sporting icon in Trinidad and Tobago. Corneal’s feats were all achieved in the last century. In 2012, however, his statements are part of the sport’s problem.

In a Trinidad Guardian article earlier this week, Corneal offered a bizarre compliment to the “Soca Warriors” who booked Trinidad and Tobago’s place at next month’s 2013 Caribbean Cup finals in Antigua and Barbuda.

Hear Corneal: “The absence of Carlos Edwards, Darryl Roberts, Kevin Molino, Kareem Hyland, Julius James, and foreign university students, Leston Paul, Sean De Silva, plus some of the TT Pro-League players whose thirst for money from foreign lands have (sic) overshadowed the scrunting, but committed lads who took up the challenge.”

To be fair, Corneal’s article sought to give credit to the players who fought in the national shirt last week. Yet, it also exposes a mindset that has contributed to Trinidad and Tobago’s struggle to keep pace with the development of the sport in other corners of CONCACAF.

“Scrunting but committed.” That is a phrase that will probably draw vigorous nods of approval from nostalgic administrators, mindful of the “good old days” when the only paid positions in sport were administrative ones and players were lucky—and grateful—to get a cup of tea and a sandwich.

How dare those players consider their own livelihoods when the national team needed players?

And, in 2012, players are still asked to think like professionals when it comes to training sessions and match days but then revert to amateur status when the issue of compensation arises. Does anyone else see the contradiction here?

The irony is completed by the fact that Corneal feels the need to list the high-profile absentees but is not moved to name a single Warrior who bled for the cause. No money, we know, but no love either?

To be clear, Corneal probably intends no malice; he is just out of date.

Here’s the backstory of the Caribbean Cup. While the national football programme was at a virtual standstill owing to infighting between the Ministry of Sport and the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF), the local Pro League laid the foundation for national coach Hutson “Barber” Charles to build on.

Regular competition in the domestic game kept the players’ fitness, discipline and tactical intelligence at acceptable levels.

If the Pro League was as rubbish as some suggest, would an uncapped 28-year-old player like Neal & Massy Caledonia AIA’s Keyon Edwards be able to walk into an international tournament and win a starting spot ahead of more experienced counterparts?

DIRECTV W Connection midfielder Clyde Leon, a clever and versatile player, has 46 national caps. Edwards would have been considered to be hopelessly out of Leon’s league owing to his inexperience at international level. Instead, the Caledonia player ended the competition with two successive starts and, apart from a flutter of nerves in front of goal, looked like he had faced the likes of Cuba for years.

Two years ago, Mexican club Chivas de Guadalajara was runner-up in the esteemed South American Copa Libertadores. But at the Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva on 26 September 2012, W Connection held the Mexicans, who were at full strength save for the odd injury, to a 1-1 draw.

So, if local clubs are enjoying more success than Trinidad and Tobago’s international teams, then why do national coaches insist on disrupting Pro League training sessions and match schedules to conduct their own exercises?

Of course, the Pro League is not yet at the level it needs to be. But disparaging public statements from people like Corneal do not help and only frustrate stakeholders who have invested—and continue to invest—so much in the product that is local football.

But the biggest problem is not the jibes from within; no, the principal concern is that such statements distract attention from the real issues.

A Caribbean football tournament of no fixed date that runs contrary to the FIFA international match calendar is a legacy of former Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president Jack Warner who used his office for more self-serving initiatives.

The Caribbean and Oceania are the only regions in the world that are ignored when FIFA designs its match calendar. South America has 10 nations and as many votes; the Caribbean has 25.

So, if South American fans can see Europe-based players like Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Radamel Falcao at the continent’s showcase tournament, then why can Caribbean enthusiasts not see Khaleem Hyland, Ricardo Fuller, Jason Roberts and Emmerson Boyce?

The players that Corneal singled out for criticism are only abiding by an international calendar that does not respect the Caribbean tournament; it is the calendar that should be criticised.

And what of the Pro League’s value?

Edwards is one example of the Pro League’s worth in developing players. But there is another Caledonia player who shows what the local football industry can mean for the country from a social standpoint.

As Trinidad and Tobago ended its qualifying tournament in Tobago with a 1-0 win over Cuba, the 25-year-old goalscorer Ataullah Guerra was almost in tears.

From his first appearance against St Vincent and the Grenadines, the Bacolet crowd warmed to Guerra’s elegant style and quick feet and, against Cuba, he got a standing ovation before he even got on the field.

“I love them,” Guerra told Wired868, after the match. “They treated me so well here.”

Guerra’s late elder brother, Mark Guerra, was a “community leader” who once took Prime Minister Patrick Manning on a tour of the John John district and made a living out of violence and fear before dying in a hail of bullets.

At Mucurapo Secondary, the younger Guerra sometimes missed school because he could not afford taxi fare. And, as a Form Four student, he once spent a fortnight working on a URP project to raise money to buy football boots.

Where would Guerra be without the Pro League? In what sphere of endeavour would be his most viable employment opportunities?

It is something for Sport Minister Anil Roberts and National Security Minister Jack Warner to consider too as they ignore established sport industries to pump millions into the Hoops of Life.

What business does the government have pretending to run a professional sporting competition when there are established leagues in need of financial and administrative support?

So it is important that men like Corneal, who claim to have football’s best interest at heart, recognise and respect the efforts of the young men who aspire to professionalism and the clubs that try to help them along the way.

Until they do, their loose statements do the modern game a disservice.

« Last Edit: December 22, 2012, 05:38:26 PM by Flex »

truetrini

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2012, 10:14:31 PM »
I wrote a response to this shit Alvin spewing and the Guardian refused to publish it in the comments.

Offline Deeks

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2012, 10:15:48 PM »
Solid, Lasana!!!!

Offline just cool

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2012, 11:00:07 PM »
I do agree with most of what lasana wrote, but i disagree with the complements on the pro league. yeh they drew with chivas, big deal, we also drew with sweden in a world cup, but the fact remains that they did play all over us and was unlucky not to score. results is not a good measuring stick to gauge capability.

another farce is the sentiment on kenyon edwards, yes i commend the yute, but he was very poor from the little highlights i saw on the both games. he also gave away the ball a lot, and his passing was terrible, he also missed an open net on a cross from hector.

IMO the pro league could be way better, and every coach who came here to coach us commented on the condition of our league, even the long breaks that they take from football was counterproductive. hek, even the great latas had enough to say about the condition of our league, it's poor lasana, how could you not see that bro, regardless if one of our teams drew with barcelona.

as for the comment on CFU, now with that i'm in agreement with, i even talked about it in a post recently.  CFU has to change their fixtures for the betterment of the caribbean football excellence. we need our best players competing for this cup, and they can't attend if it's done during non fifa dates.

and some ppl swear jack was the best thing that happened to football in the region, but on close examination, he sucked in that capacity as well. whom ever fooled this thief and told him that he knew anything about football administration. stuueepppsss.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2012, 11:03:28 PM by just cool »
The pen is mightier than the sword, Africa for Africans home and abroad.Trinidad is not my home just a pit stop, Africa is my destination,final destination the MOST HIGH.

Offline Football supporter

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2012, 05:46:56 AM »
I do agree with most of what lasana wrote, but i disagree with the complements on the pro league. yeh they drew with chivas, big deal, we also drew with sweden in a world cup, but the fact remains that they did play all over us and was unlucky not to score. results is not a good measuring stick to gauge capability.

another farce is the sentiment on kenyon edwards, yes i commend the yute, but he was very poor from the little highlights i saw on the both games. he also gave away the ball a lot, and his passing was terrible, he also missed an open net on a cross from hector.

IMO the pro league could be way better, and every coach who came here to coach us commented on the condition of our league, even the long breaks that they take from football was counterproductive. hek, even the great latas had enough to say about the condition of our league, it's poor lasana, how could you not see that bro, regardless if one of our teams drew with barcelona.

as for the comment on CFU, now with that i'm in agreement with, i even talked about it in a post recently.  CFU has to change their fixtures for the betterment of the caribbean football excellence. we need our best players competing for this cup, and they can't attend if it's done during non fifa dates.

and some ppl swear jack was the best thing that happened to football in the region, but on close examination, he sucked in that capacity as well. whom ever fooled this thief and told him that he knew anything about football administration. stuueepppsss.

The breaks are very frustrating. "every coach who came here to coach us commented on the condition of our league, even the long breaks that they take from football was counterproductive"  Funny thing is, its the National coaches and non FIFA schedule that cause many of the breaks! Unfortunately, with such low attendances, the league cannot run alongside league fixtures, so if you lose in the first round, you may not play for 3 weeks. I can tell you that our players and coaches don't like this either, but until attendances improve, there just isn't enough support to warrant league and cup matches at the same time.

But its simple mathmatics, if there are 1,000 more supporters at every game, maybe the league clubs could bring some foreign players of higher quality and retain the local boys who are tempted overseas by higher wages?

Central F.C. were giving out 500 free tickets but only around 150 were being used. Without bags of cash to constantly advertise, I'm not sure what else we can do. If we could magically transport the 2,000 people who would attend a Grimsby Town game or a Hereford Utd game on a freezing Tuesday night in the UK, I'm sure they would prefer the Pro League, if you discount partisan loyalty (you might have to provide cornish pasties and steak pies!) 

Offline Bakes

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2012, 07:29:40 AM »
I do agree with most of what lasana wrote, but i disagree with the complements on the pro league. yeh they drew with chivas, big deal, we also drew with sweden in a world cup, but the fact remains that they did play all over us and was unlucky not to score. results is not a good measuring stick to gauge capability.

...what did Lasana add to the Pro League that made it whole?

Offline davidephraim

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2012, 07:34:54 AM »
Nice read Lasana! Dey just out of date.  Ah love it!
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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2012, 07:56:49 AM »
Highlights are not enough to judge a player and he would not have kept Guerra and Leon on the bench if he was having an awful tournament. The main point remains that he would not have been used at all if the Pro League was rubbish because they would have needed to give him more time to adapt before playing him in a crunch match against a Cuban team that had been just playing World Cup qualifiers.

Offline weary1969

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #8 on: November 22, 2012, 01:31:00 PM »
After Corneal commentary during the happiest moment in TNT football history d fella should have been put out to pasture. Cue Patriot
Today you're the dog, tomorrow you're the hydrant - so be good to others - it comes back!"

Offline just cool

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2012, 05:24:04 PM »
Highlights are not enough to judge a player and he would not have kept Guerra and Leon on the bench if he was having an awful tournament. The main point remains that he would not have been used at all if the Pro League was rubbish because they would have needed to give him more time to adapt before playing him in a crunch match against a Cuban team that had been just playing World Cup qualifiers.
Well that depends on the player.

the player could have been capable but was just having a bad day, or a bad tournament, whatever the case, but you don't have to watch a player whole season to know that they lack ability, simple technical errors could lead to that conclusion initially.

now i don't live in T&T, but when i do go there i attend games quite frequently, mind you, i also attend MLS games ever so often. quite a few times last season i took the train out to philly and DC to take in a couple games, i also went out to redbull stadium this past season by train, since i got lost driving there last yr to see jamaica play honduras in the gold cup, plus i find it more convenient to take the train, so that easyyyy for me.  ;D.

but seriously, i measured and compare the speed and complexity of the game in both leagues, and to tell you the truth bro, MLS is miles ahead in terms of speed, technical ability and tactics.

yes there are solid players in our league, and no i'm not dogging the league, but seriously bro, if the last three foreign coaches who came here and commented on the level of our league as poor, and even the son of the soil latapy concured, then isn't that enough for the owners and stake holders to make an effort to raise the bar.

i've been watching the CCL for yrs now, and when our boys compete they look rather poor incomparison with their central american and north american counterparts, even though now and then they may put in a winning performance, hek even ah broken clock is right twice a day.

i would rather see us in the final round of the CCL than to win or draw "one game against a team like chivas". not bc these things happen from time to time means that we are on the same level as chivas.

i think ppl in T&T underestimate the level of talent we may have on those two islands, hek, we produced the likes of yorke, latapy, lewis, marcelle, the sutton brothers, nakid, shaka hislop, shervan pragg, marlon morris, stern john, kenwyne jones, carlos edwards, jason scotland, keon daniel, darryl roberts, hyland, peltier, molino and many more without as much as a proper coaching school or advanced academies in place on the islands, yet still we send out players who defy the odds.

one could only think, "if these players were properly trained from an early age, and groomed in a league that was way more tactical" than the one we presently, boy i could see it now, this would be a scouts paradise! too bad we don't have men who really care bout football and don't see it as our national product, just like oil gas and asphalt. wouldn't that be something if they what was laying under their feet, of talent?.

so yeh, now and then we will pull off an upset and draw with the likes of a sweden, and beat ah few top team in the region, but is that a good gauge to rate our progress, or even our pro league? i think not!

IMO our raw talent shines through now and then, so we conceive ah sense of false hope in that , "yes we reach, just like in the world cup appearance we made" but the truth is brothers, it was just a false sense of hope, as raw talent shone through yet again, just for a short while in time, but the reality is,we need ah hek of a lot of work to even say we reach half way.

we not ready yet for sure, and our league needs fixing bad.
The pen is mightier than the sword, Africa for Africans home and abroad.Trinidad is not my home just a pit stop, Africa is my destination,final destination the MOST HIGH.

Offline SWF Reporter

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #10 on: November 22, 2012, 09:44:06 PM »
just cool, you make valid points. but there are mitigating factors. when chelsea and everton and so on do a mls tour in july, the results are usually close right? that is because one team is in mid-season and other is in pre-season. if those mls teams played premiership opposition in october, they might get a handful.
the pro league runs its league in tandem with the europe and that put them at a disadvantage in concacaf. that is something the league will have to consider.
the mls is doing very well in many ways and growing fast. i respect that. attendances are growing and the franchise players are attracting more talent.
in football, wages are generally directly related to performances. the teams that spend more are expected to do better than those that spend less.
most mls teams spends in a month what a pro league team spends in a year or even two years. so when we do well, we are actually over achieving and it is a real accomplishment like when joe public beat new england revolution on a home and away basis.
the pro league lacks the intensity of the better overseas leagues. that is one of the biggest issues. also when players don't have a demanding crowd to answer to, it takes away an additional sense of responsibility. so the pro league players miss out on that too.
but, despite all that, i don't think a mls team will blow away caledonia or connection when they both have six leagues games under their belt. and that is a huge complement to the pro league. because you probably couldn't say the same thing about a welsh pro team meeting newcastle or so.
i don't think the mls is miles ahead of the pro league in terms of what happens on the field. but your points are all valid ones still.
in terms of highlights, i have seen some players do highlight reels of themselves and they looked awesome. but they are average players. you don't always have to watch a player for several games to tell if he is any good.
but what highlights doesn't show is a player's movement off the ball, if he tracks back. his positional sense. does he help out with the chores? how is his first touch? does he have presence? you generally have to sit down and watch a guy for a half hour or so to be able to tell those things.
i won't say that keyon edwards has cemented his place or anything like that. but i think he did well apart from his failure to finish some good chances.

Offline davidephraim

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #11 on: November 22, 2012, 10:35:01 PM »
Nice read Lasana! Dey just out of date.  Ah love it!

Yes Andre!
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Offline maxg

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2012, 08:17:58 AM »
Well said Reporter. Excellent observations.

Offline Trinitozbone

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Re: Wired868: Corneal does a disservice to local football
« Reply #13 on: December 22, 2012, 01:38:42 PM »
Why do you think Guardian would print your letter to the Editor? The man writes some biased articles for the Guardian?
 Lasana  is correct ! He is so out of date and full of crap! He knows everything about football , cricket everything! He is so good  and he never was a success as a coach but he is most successful in getting his son assignments

 

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