March 28, 2024, 09:42:46 AM

Author Topic: Rebuilding the football dream  (Read 1747 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Tallman

  • Administrator
  • Hero Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 25250
    • View Profile
Rebuilding the football dream
« on: July 14, 2014, 06:35:02 PM »
Rebuilding the football dream
T&T Express


With World Cup 2014 now but a memory, this is a good a time to reflect on the state of Trinidad and Tobago football. Two World Cups ago, this country was the toast of Germany as the smallest to make it onto football’s biggest stage. Whatever hopes this nation had for building on that momentum were dashed as T&T’s fairytale appearance in World Cup 2006 petered out without the storybook ending. Instead, we endured the sorry spectacle of the 2006 Soca Warriors having to battle tooth and nail through the courts to get money owed to them. To date, not even the court ruling in their favour has succeeded in forcing the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) to make good on its debt to the players. Alongside this has been the embarrassing collapse of the TTFA to the point of bankruptcy.

Club football has also endured its own challenges as one of the many victims of the collapse of CL Financial. Once the proud sponsor of the famed San Juan Jabloteh team, CL Financial was among the small handful of private corporations to give consistent support to football.
 
However, the biggest impact on football’s fortunes has come from Jack Warner, football administrator extraordinaire. Over the course of his remarkable rise from community league football to the vice-presidency of FIFA, Warner carried T&T football on a wild ride, moving from the depths of deprivation to the heights of glory, and back down.

Any objective analysis of Warner’s impact on the development of football in T&T and the Caribbean will have to weigh the positives and negatives. Which way the scales should tip would be a matter for debate. Suffice it to say, however, that T&T football urgently needs to pull itself together and chart a way forward beyond the ruins of Warner’s football career.

There is no doubt that Warner’s departure has left a huge void in football administration which cannot, and should not be filled by some other personality. For football’s sake, Warner’s exit should mark the end of the era of personality-led leadership. What T&T football needs now is an effective administrative machinery that reconceptualises the management of the sport and strategises the way forward towards clear developmental goals and targets. In this way, the management requirements for football are no different from any other area of national life.

A fundamental condition, however, must be the depoliticisation of football. In the context of the history between Warner and successive political administrations, going back to the Williams era, this is likely to be a tall order. Football and politics have become so intertwined that it will not be easy to disentangle the many knots in which its administration is caught. One consequence of this will be played out in coming months as the Soca Warriors intensify their quest to have the TTFA pay the US$1.3 million owed to them.

While the sequel to World Cup 2006 is played out in the courts, the real future of football lies out in the fields with today’s youngsters. Let us not fail them.
The Conquering Lion of Judah shall break every chain.

Offline AB.Trini

  • Hero Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 5624
  • yuh cyar take meh ancestry from meh
    • View Profile
Re: Rebuilding the football dream
« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2014, 10:50:53 PM »
Ent ah started this some time ago:
 
Building for 2018
« on: May 10, 2014, 09:48:25 AM »

Building for 2018
« on: May 10, 2014, 09:48:25 AM »
QuoteModifyRemove
Keeping the big picture in sight- it is not quite evident if as we assess players what 2018 plays in the thinking at this time.

Kudos for the administration in acquiring the quality of friendlies in June but what is the plan this far? We are one month away and is like yuh hearing very little of proposed player selections or team preparation. I realize that some players are still engaged in league play with their respective teams.

So from a coaches' perspective what is the plan for June? Showcase the strongest possible team we have in our player pool? or think 2018? By fielding potential talent?

Who are the BEST prospective talent we have at this current time?

Locals:    Starting in goal?    Forwards?   Midfields ?    Defence?

players in UK:

Players in Europe:

Players in Asia:

MLS:

Players who could represent TNT but have not committed at this time:

In my humble opinion we still need a strong midfielder to direct the attack; a striker who is a threat to score and who could run at defences.

We have seen growing improvements  in defence and I think we have depth to work with.

Who is a quality young goaltender to work alongside Jan Michael?

I still believe that some mini camps involving the best of the locals against foreign based players could be a healthy motivation and competition for all players involved. It appeared that our last international friendlies showed that we had some momentum in moving forward now  how do we keep this moving forward?

We have some Caribbean competitions on the horizon and we also have Gold Cup- I would like to see open completion for spots at each of these none of this fielding a semi B team for qualifications then brining in foreign players .if we want to foster a truly compatible and formidable squad we ought to have the very best at each competition.
« Last Edit: July 14, 2014, 10:53:30 PM by AB.Trini »

Offline trini_stallion

  • Hero Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 1297
  • soca in mih veins, soca in mih blood...
    • View Profile
Re: Rebuilding the football dream
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2014, 05:14:09 AM »
Imho I believe that we have depth in both the midfield and defense...ots the finishing touch...that striker with the killer instinct....concurls, plaza, winchester, gay? I think jones over de hill...we need to fill his spot with a more versatile type striker!
Soca in mih vein, Soca in meh blood
Soca in yuh vein, Soca in blood,
Soca in we vein, Soca in we blood,
It's a heart of love, can't deny soca, cuz its good fuh de soul...
Trinidad and Tobago jump up now!

Offline Tallman

  • Administrator
  • Hero Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 25250
    • View Profile
Rebuilding our football
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2021, 02:29:10 PM »
Rebuilding our football
T&T Express


ALL too predictably, Trinidad and Tobago’s World Cup campaign has come to a sad and ragged end. Being eliminated in the very first round of the competition was a first for the Soca Warriors. That their exit came against the lowly Bahamas team was salt in the wound for a team which, in 2006, had won global admiration as the smallest country ever to make it into the World Cup finals.

Mercifully, there was some balm yesterday for heart-broken sports fans from swimmer Dylan Carter who had a super weekend in the Mare Nostrum Tour in Barcelona, Spain, the high point of which was the gold medal in the men’s 50m backstroke final.

Where the national senior men’s football team goes from this point is anyone’s guess, given the byzantine nature of football administration with its streak of contentiousness from top to bottom.

As expected, Saturday’s defeat has unleashed an orgy of finger-pointing and recrimination that has engulfed the coach, the players, the Normalisation Committee that now runs the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation, previous football administrators, and even the Commissioner of Police. The number of mistakes made along the way to the team’s sorry end in Bahamas has created enough blame to go around.

However, in focusing on the team’s current failure there is the risk of missing the forest for the trees.

The problem with T&T’s football is bigger than that of the competence of coach Fenwick, the skill of the players or the quality of management provided by the Normalisation Committee under chairman Robert Hadad, or indeed any combination of the multiplicity of interests surrounding the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA). There is a deep rot in T&T’s football that predates all of the current personalities and until that is addressed there is little chance of putting our football back on the road to victory.

A full decade after the end of the Jack Warner era, T&T’s football is still to emerge from under the dominant shadow that he cast over the country’s football in the 48 years that he led the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF). We do not need to go into the details of his colourful and controversial career to make the point about his extraordinary approach to leadership in developing football in this country and the wider Caribbean. His style came out of an era of highly individualistic leadership which, in time, ran up against the current of democratised leadership with its requirement for accountability and transparency.

In navigating the future beyond Warner, the TTFA needed to engage a process of transformation and re-invent itself as a modern institution. However, despite talking the talk, successor administrations have fallen far short of this with each collapsing over issues of transparency and accountability. The sport is dominated by unending squabble among administrators which has relegated the game of football and the players to the margins. What happened in the Bahamas on Saturday was the inevitable consequence of years of administrative failures.

T&T’s football is in need of a fresh start based on a structure grounded in community and school football and built on principles of democratic representation. It’s time to shift the goalpost on the conversation.
The Conquering Lion of Judah shall break every chain.

Offline Tallman

  • Administrator
  • Hero Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 25250
    • View Profile
Re: Rebuilding the football dream
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2021, 02:30:21 PM »
Being eliminated in the very first round of the competition was a first for the Soca Warriors.

This is not true. We were eliminated in the first round of qualification for the 1994 World Cup after losing 3-2 to Jamaica on aggregate.
The Conquering Lion of Judah shall break every chain.

Offline ABTrini

  • Sr. Warrior
  • ****
  • Posts: 422
    • View Profile
Re: Rebuilding the football dream
« Reply #5 on: June 08, 2021, 08:44:33 AM »
Ent ah started this some time ago:
 
Building for 2018
« on: May 10, 2014, 09:48:25 AM »

Building for 2018
« on: May 10, 2014, 09:48:25 AM »
QuoteModifyRemove
Keeping the big picture in sight- it is not quite evident if as we assess players what 2018 plays in the thinking at this time.

Kudos for the administration in acquiring the quality of friendlies in June but what is the plan this far? We are one month away and is like yuh hearing very little of proposed player selections or team preparation. I realize that some players are still engaged in league play with their respective teams.

So from a coaches' perspective what is the plan for June? Showcase the strongest possible team we have in our player pool? or think 2018? By fielding potential talent?

Who are the BEST prospective talent we have at this current time?

Locals:    Starting in goal?    Forwards?   Midfields ?    Defence?

players in UK:

Players in Europe:

Players in Asia:

MLS:

Players who could represent TNT but have not committed at this time:

In my humble opinion we still need a strong midfielder to direct the attack; a striker who is a threat to score and who could run at defences.

We have seen growing improvements  in defence and I think we have depth to work with.

Who is a quality young goaltender to work alongside Jan Michael?

I still believe that some mini camps involving the best of the locals against foreign based players could be a healthy motivation and competition for all players involved. It appeared that our last international friendlies showed that we had some momentum in moving forward now  how do we keep this moving forward?

We have some Caribbean competitions on the horizon and we also have Gold Cup- I would like to see open completion for spots at each of these none of this fielding a semi B team for qualifications then brining in foreign players .if we want to foster a truly compatible and formidable squad we ought to have the very best at each competition.

How many times we go keep rebuilding?
When we eh have a solid foundation is no wonder we keep collapsing

Offline Deeks

  • Hero Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 18631
    • View Profile
Re: Rebuilding the football dream
« Reply #6 on: June 08, 2021, 01:12:32 PM »
How many times we go keep rebuilding?

As long as it takes!

Offline Sando prince

  • Hero Warrior
  • *****
  • Posts: 9192
    • View Profile
Re: Rebuilding the football dream
« Reply #7 on: June 10, 2021, 11:07:21 AM »

Offline ABTrini

  • Sr. Warrior
  • ****
  • Posts: 422
    • View Profile
Re: Rebuilding the football dream
« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2023, 11:55:32 AM »
 How long does a rebuild  take? In Trinidad times could that  another XXXX number of years since  A.D. 2006?  or how many years was in B.C. 2006?

 

1]; } ?>