Warriors must rise...or face another early exit
By Shaun Fuentes (TTFF)Trinidad and Tobago’s Senior footballers gave a sub-par performance in their 2-0 defeat to hosts Antigua/Barbuda and put themselves in what has of late become an all too familiar position of having to depend on final day results to stay alive in a competition.
The “Soca Warriors” will have to defeat Dominican Republic on Tuesday and hope for a Haiti win over the hosts in the second game of the double header for a clear-cut passage to the semi-finals and the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup Finals.
The defeat broke T&T’s seven-match unbeaten run in the competition dating back to their opening 4-1 win over French Guiana in the qualifying first round in St Kitts/Nevis.
The current squad has been described by the coaches as the best possible one assembled under the circumstances of not having access to some of the overseas-based players such as Carlos Edwards, Khaleem Hyland, Kenwyne Jones and Darryl Roberts.
Never before in the Yorke/Latapy era and with the likes of David Nakhid, Jerren Nixon, Marvin Andrews, Anthony Rougier, Stern John and Ansil Elcock among others in the mix, would T&T have been unsure of taking care of these types of opposition. Even with players who may not have been categorized as the top guns from the “foreign base crew” from that generation, T&T would always stamp their authority against such opponents as St Vincent/Grenadines, St Kitts/Nevis and Antigua.
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