Sancho hails coach Hart, Soca Warriors effort
By JOEL BAILEY (Newsday).
BRENT SANCHO, ex-Trinidad and Tobago football team defender and current Minister of Sport, is pleased with the efforts shown by the current national squad at the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the United States.
The Stephen Hart-coached team lost 6-5, via kicks from the penalty spot, against Panama on Sunday evening, in their quarter-final match at New Jersey, United States. The scoreline was 1-1 at the end of regulation and extra times, but the Panama team held their nerves in the shootout.
“It’s a heartbreaking loss for us,” said Sancho, during a telephone interview yesterday. “Once you get to that stage of the game, when you go to penalty kicks, it was a lottery.
“All in all, I think coach Hart and the players will be very proud of their performances. They’ve done extremely well in terms of the performances that they put forward.”
Commenting on the on-field display against Panama, as a former national player, the 37-year-old Sancho stated, “going into the game, I read comments that coach Hart was willing to possess the ball a little more, and we fell short in that department.
“Although we played very well in the early games, for some reason against Panama, we didn’t seem to possess the ball as well as we had before,” he continued. “I don’t think the midfielders played as well as they had during the tournament. Because of that, we found ourselves in a position where we were chasing the Panamanians around the pitch.
“Once it got to extra time, we looked a (less fitter) team. But, then again, we’ve put in so many remarkable performances during the course of the tournament, to have us slip up at that point was a bit unfortunate. It’s nothing for them to drop their heads for.”
Sancho added, “We’ve done exceedingly well and I think going forward, I’d love to see coach Hart have a discussion with the (Trinidad and Tobago) Football Association, where they do give him the type of practice games and the type of backing that he deserves, so he can prepare the team for the World Cup.”
The national team, known as the Soca Warriors, were blighted by funding issues before the Gold Cup, particularly payment to the members of the technical staff.
Sancho pointed out, “the undertaking that the Government has taken in terms of making sure that the staff was and has been paid, and also the players, has absolutely nothing to do with the Ministry at all. In fact, we’ve paid everything that we’ve supposed to pay.
“Whatever we haven’t paid is in the process of being paid,” he added. “So they were, up until November of last year, basically guaranteed a salary. So I believe we made them very comfortable, in terms of the monies used for making sure that their preparations for the Gold Cup were there. In terms of the actual preparations, I think that’s a matter for the Football Association to answer.”
The Sports Minister went on to say, “taking my Ministerial hat off for a second, I did think it was not necessarily a good idea spending a lot of the budgeted money, or the ‘sent money’ from Cabinet to go all the way to Jordan to play a game. I think it could have been better used. I’m not the one who decides who we play or who we don’t play.”
The national team will now turn their attention towards the start of the CONCACAF qualification stage, for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
But Sancho emphasised that the TTFA will have to be more serious in their dealings with the Ministry, in terms of accountability.
“I’ll make it abundantly clear whatever (issue) between myself and the president of the Football Association is between myself and him. It has nothing to do with the players,” he stressed. “We continue to pay the players’ salary. We still continue to pay directly to the players and directly to the coaching staff.
“What we’re asking for is transparency and accountability with the Football Association. I find it a bit confusing and even disrespectful to know that they can make a statement as such, knowing fully well that this Government and this Ministry has fully supported, financially, all of their endeavours.”
