mental development and development of the football psyche.
Is not just football. Is our team sports in general. We lack the mental toughness (in general) to carry it through.
Some individual athletes have the requisite mental development to achieve individual honors, but our teams lack that component.
This is what makes the Soca Warriors of 2005/06 so special. And to a lesser extent the Daren Ganga led T&T cricket teams. They were able to buck that trend...although Ganga's team succumbed to this malaise at the final hurdle when well poised to take the inaugural World T20 Championship
I feel it for the players today. They most definitely gave their all.....but it just wasn't good enough on the day. Something that's too often been said about our teams on the big stages
Question....has a T&T National team ever won a major sporting title when playing at home?
We
hosted the World Netball Championships in 1979 and couldn't beat New Zealand to win the title outright
We played the USA
at home needing only a draw to proceed to the 1990 World Cup in Italy and lost
We
hosted the U 17 world cup and couldn't draw a game
Our up to then dominant T20 cricket team playing
at home lost to Guyana to concede a place in the World T20 Championship in South Africa
Then there's today's result.
It's not a coincidence.