Alvin Corneal Articles

[Flex]

What is T&T's football future?
By Alvin Corneal (Guardian).

It is as if I was not aware of the many chal­lenges which the great game of foot­ball has been af­fect­ed by here in T&T.

Hav­ing had a pe­ri­od of 1954 to this present day will have brought to my mind, var­i­ous lev­els of sport, foot­ball and crick­et specif­i­cal­ly.

Hav­ing said that, the de­sire to hear any­thing with ref­er­ence to de­vel­op­ment in ei­ther of the sport­ing dis­ci­plines and maybe sport gen­er­al­ly, has some in­ter­est­ing val­ues of learn­ing, or in some cas­es, rel­e­vant teach­ing prin­ci­ples of sports come to my mind reg­u­lar­ly.

Be­cause the com­pe­tence of both ma­jor sports in the coun­try was high qual­i­ty, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al sport­ing events were con­duct­ed by some of the finest sports ad­min­is­tra­tors. Any his­to­ri­an can sup­ply you with the names.

My anx­i­ety to hear the re­marks of the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tors in their ef­forts to iden­ti­fy with a pos­i­tive path for­ward is al­most like read­ing sign lan­guage with­out any les­son on the sub­ject.

A re­cent in­ter­view on tele­vi­sion with the T&T foot­ball pres­i­dent David John-Williams pro­duced one of the lessons which I was hop­ing to lis­ten care­ful­ly and un­der­stand the di­rec­tion which is tak­en to bring foot­ball up to the stan­dard which had been at­tract­ing hun­dreds or thou­sands of fans to the avail­able grounds to ac­com­mo­date club com­pe­ti­tion.

To every state­ment made by the pres­i­dent, my rec­ol­lec­tion of yes­ter­year's glo­ry days al­lowed me to re­live the joy of the foot­ballers and the fans, on and off the field.

The ini­tial light to­wards the end of a long tun­nel was the struc­ture of some sol­id for­mu­lat­ed clubs, whose main in­ten­tion was to pro­duce a high qual­i­ty brand of the game which caught the eyes and ears of the pop­u­la­tion and lit­er­al­ly urged the fans to spend al­most every af­ter­noon ei­ther walk­ing, rid­ing, or us­ing any form of lo­cal trans­port pos­si­ble to ar­rive at the venues to line the play­ing fields to be en­ter­tained.

As I lis­tened to the dis­cus­sion with the pres­i­dent I heard of the spe­cif­ic deals which would have im­proved the ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fices and al­lowed the sport to be­come the own­er of a na­tion­al sta­di­um and a ho­tel at its - Home of Foot­ball - at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va.

The Pres­i­dent shared with the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty the fi­nan­cial prob­lems and chal­lenges which are se­ri­ous ob­sta­cles for the sport and how to ad­dress it. He did not for­get to blame pre­vi­ous pres­i­dents and high­light­ed the rea­son for the new leader a dis­mal start in of­fice, and be­moan­ing the cur­rent fact as to how much mon­ey and to whom they owed.

He made a quick jump to his achieve­ments - the sports' own­er­ship of the venue, ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fices, and the soon to be opened ho­tel. Per­haps, this to him is progress to the great game, while very lit­tle was men­tioned about play­er de­vel­op­ment and the process which would leave a path to the stan­dard of foot­ball for which he may one day wish to en­joy.

He boasts of hav­ing 100% sup­port for each de­ci­sion which was tabled with his board mem­bers, many of which were be­ing re­port­ed in the me­dia end­ing in to­tal chaos.

He gave an ac­count of the fi­nan­cial in­debt­ed­ness to the na­tion­al coach­es which left the pub­lic to be­lieve that he was try­ing to “as­sist” them with small bits of pay­ments at a time and out­lined how much debt the sport had be­fore he came in­to of­fice in the seat of pres­i­dent.

May I say that I can­not re­call him stat­ing what his plans were to cor­rect that fi­nan­cial prob­lems of the which were al­ways high­light­ed in the me­dia be­fore he ac­cept­ed the job.

In amidst of some friv­o­lous items for which he could not have giv­en an ex­pla­na­tion or in­for­ma­tion that could not be di­vulged, up came a “de­fin­i­tive com­ment” from him - "Pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball is here to stay."

I wish I had the space to chal­lenge the com­ment be­cause I have not seen any ev­i­dence to back up such a state­ment.

For ex­am­ple, how can play­ers be trans­fer­ring from one club to the next in the same league, and the same clubs can­not af­ford to pay play­ers their month­ly wages with­out go­ing to the gov­ern­ment to beg for as­sis­tance.

If that is the an­swer to "Pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball is here to stay" - then the ex­is­tence of the Pro League, then we can pre­pare a de­f­i­n­i­tion of pro­fes­sion­al­ism in the con­text of T&T foot­ball. That state­ment proves the ex­tent of our ad­min­is­tra­tors dis­tance from the re­al­i­ty of what is be­fore them.

Maybe an­oth­er ar­ti­cle will be worth of­fer­ing an ex­pla­na­tion.

[Tallman]

I welcome the football Commission
By Alvin Corneal (T&T Guardian)

One of the most ac­cu­rate com­ments which have been made about the coun­try's foot­ball was the de­ci­sion to im­ple­ment an ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee to man­age the af­fairs of the high­est lev­els of our foot­ball. This move will al­so en­sure the fra­ter­ni­ty that the num­ber of ills which have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed the qual­i­ty of the great game be­cause of the de­fi­cien­cy in deal­ing with the ad­min­is­tra­tive as­pect of it.

I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised that the com­ment would have been made by cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers who were par­ty to the present state of the game.

The fact that a re­view of the cur­rent dis­play of un­solved prob­lems was recog­nised by those in charge. So I asked, why would they wish to uti­lize the same per­son­nel to form the ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee?

What else could they have done which they would like to change?

The ab­solute con­fus­ing state of lead­er­ship across the board ap­peared to re­place in­tel­li­gent dis­cus­sions in ex­change for per­son­al­iza­tion, far less than con­struc­tive to mod­ern day sports man­age­ment. FI­FA had sent their ex­perts to lec­ture to the clubs in the var­i­ous leagues inT&T, to en­sure that they will re­turn to their vil­lages and turn the tide around for a bet­ter foot­ball ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Yes, there is a need for qual­i­fied per­son­nel who can take care­ful scruti­ny at the con­sti­tu­tion of the TTFA and make the as­sess­ment which ex­ist­ed with­in the rules and reg­u­la­tions.

This is not the first time that there was a need for the au­thor­i­ties to rewrite the con­sti­tu­tions of all the ma­jor sports in the years 1972-74.

What they would ob­serve in the cur­rent doc­u­ment (con­sti­tu­tion) it that it varies ap­pre­cia­bly, not so much in the or­tho­dox struc­tures which were de­fined, but the num­ber of changes which have brought the present con­di­tion to its demise.

It would take lit­tle or no time to recog­nise that the struc­tures which were writ­ten in­to the books by some of the most in­tel­li­gent men in ad­min­is­tra­tion in that era to de­tect, had ei­ther been mis­un­der­stood or brought changes which did not work.

The suc­cess­ful sports per­son­al­i­ties of the past have left com­pe­tence in foot­ball man­age­ment, much of which is no longer with us to fol­low be­fore it was de­stroyed by rule-break­ing which is the present rule of the day. It is re­placed by the use of un­nec­es­sary ar­gu­ments amount the cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive which have caused nu­mer­ous ar­gu­ments in what is sup­posed to be ex­ec­u­tive meet­ings ad­dress­ing con­cerns that would in­stead im­prove the qual­i­ty of the game and sports in gen­er­al.

The sports fans are still very pa­tri­ot­ic and ex­pect­ing to wit­ness the en­ter­tain­ing dis­plays which came out at the venues of all the ma­jor sports, every af­ter­noon in the past.

I won­der how many have been in­formed of the won­der­ful dis­play of both crick­et and foot­ball when the pop­u­lar teams com­pet­ed against each oth­er on the week­end for crick­et and af­ter­noons for foot­ball.

Where were the su­per for­eign ath­letes like Har­ri­son Dil­lard, Ben John­son, and oth­ers who graced our venues to match strides with the likes of Ed Roberts, Kent Bernard, Char­lie Joseph, Hase­ly Craw­ford, Wen­dell Mot­t­ley, Ed Skin­ner, Ains­ley Arm­strong and oth­ers? They were su­per­stars in our midst.

There was no time for mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion and word bash­ing among the com­pe­tent lead­ers of the sports as­so­ci­a­tion at that time of life.

The days have gone and un­for­tu­nate­ly, in­stead of our peo­ple try­ing to fol­low a pre­vi­ous path of suc­cess in ad­min­is­tra­tion, they pre­fer to take the course of want­i­ng to fight to be­come lead­ers in these fields, when, as we now know, how in­ca­pable they have turned out to be. If you doubt me, just look at the num­bers of na­tion­al sports who are lin­ing up be­fore the courts for one rea­son or an­oth­er.

Fi­nal­ly, if the ad­vi­so­ry is need­ed, please al­low our min­istry of sports to se­lect qual­i­fied per­son­nel to re­or­gan­ise the struc­tures if nec­es­sary and fol­low their path by way of hon­esty, good man­age­ment, and cre­ate the most com­fort and ded­i­ca­tion which our sports­men and women could ever have wished.

[Flex]

Please save our football.
By Alvin Corneal (Guardian).

Will some­one help save our foot­ball?

This is a ques­tion which I have heard asked by nu­mer­ous sup­port­ers of the great sport. Their re­quest though is not de­signed to cas­ti­gate the per­sons who may have been re­spon­si­ble for the com­pli­cat­ed state of the sport and com­pe­ti­tions them­selves.

Be­cause of the lim­it­ed space, I have to work with, it makes no sense for me to start from the be­gin­ning of the fi­as­co and send the game in­to a fur­ther con­fused state for which it is al­ready in.

What I am cer­tain about is that from the com­mence­ment of the As­cen­sion In­vi­ta­tion­al Foot­ball League, which brought at­tach­ment to the Pro League and the Su­per League, re­ports have in­di­cat­ed that it has run in­to fi­nan­cial prob­lems even be­fore its ini­tial match-sched­ule is com­plet­ed.

For those, who have any de­gree of knowl­edge con­cern­ing the of­fi­cial guid­ance which is be­ing fol­lowed and by whom has the au­thor­i­ty to make de­ci­sions re­gard­ing the com­pe­ti­tion, then pro­vide some as­sis­tance, it is need­ed.

Hon­est­ly, I be­lieve that the time is ripe for the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT), the Min­istry of Sports and the clubs, which have been en­gaged with any type of foot­ball tour­na­ment pre­vi­ous­ly con­trolled by the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), to get in­volved.

All we are hear­ing from mem­bers of the T League is for the gov­ern­ment to fund the League, a league which is un­able to ex­plain what fund­ing has been utilised by the com­mit­tee to date.

The As­cen­sion League match­es are giv­en good me­dia cov­er­age for the ef­fort to ex­pand its in­ter­est that will help lure the fans to match­es. How­ev­er, fans are not flock­ing the var­i­ous venues which means that that fundrais­ing as­pect of the project seems to have failed be­cause the in­for­ma­tion which has been passed to the me­dia has not en­ticed the peo­ple who sup­port foot­ball to trav­el to the var­i­ous match­es in great num­bers.

From a gen­er­al stand­point, the prob­lems of foot­ball and com­pe­ti­tions need a group of cho­sen per­son­nel whose knowl­edge in sports man­age­ment (plan­ning, fundrais­ing, ac­count­ing, mar­ket­ing) and most of all, those who need to ex­press the im­por­tance of in­volv­ing the pres­ence of com­mu­ni­ties as the foun­da­tion for any event to get in­volved to for­mu­late a plan which would change the cur­rent di­rec­tion of foot­ball and foot­ball man­age­ment in the coun­try.

If the present ad­min­is­tra­tors are not ca­pa­ble of do­ing as stat­ed above, please give oth­ers an op­por­tu­ni­ty be­fore our foot­ball reach­es a state where it is un­re­pairable like has been the cas­es in Zim­bab­we and Egypt where they are now lit­er­al­ly beg­ging the FI­FA to in­ter­vene to solve prob­lems which will help their foot­ball change its course of di­rec­tion and im­prove their com­pe­ti­tion blue­print.

[Tiresais]

Please save our football.
By Alvin Corneal (Guardian).
If the present ad­min­is­tra­tors are not ca­pa­ble of do­ing as stat­ed above, please give oth­ers an op­por­tu­ni­ty be­fore our foot­ball reach­es a state where it is un­re­pairable like has been the cas­es in Zim­bab­we and Egypt where they are now lit­er­al­ly beg­ging the FI­FA to in­ter­vene to solve prob­lems which will help their foot­ball change its course of di­rec­tion and im­prove their com­pe­ti­tion blue­print.

TT football is already at this stage. No professional football for 12 months, clubs ejected from continental competitions due to our glorious leader's inability to fill in bloody paper work, collapse of positive progress on the league, total disregard for the new constitution, fractures in the board that sees factionalism win over football, and they expected big attendances? I mean they're higher than the Pro League ever got, but there's precious little local attachment for a number of these clubs - why beg a community that you're not part of? We're rapidly reaching "scrap the whole bloody lot and rebuild" territory.

[maxg]

Yes.. but now we have a home , just for this homelessness eventuality. Everybody find it nice, nice. Every other failings, club, National, regional, must be that Look Noise fella and his bandits, only bothering builders with questions and lawyers.. they so bad and mean 


Add: I know TT ppl not foolish, but when it comes to hustle and cleverness- read smart man ting, UTT don’t have enuff certificates to hand out .  Not realizing how in the long run it’s devastating to the country. Therein lies the stupidity. It ain’t wrong if the successful fella with the money say it right .

[asylumseeker]

Please save our football.
By Alvin Corneal (Guardian).
If the present ad­min­is­tra­tors are not ca­pa­ble of do­ing as stat­ed above, please give oth­ers an op­por­tu­ni­ty be­fore our foot­ball reach­es a state where it is un­re­pairable like has been the cas­es in Zim­bab­we and Egypt where they are now lit­er­al­ly beg­ging the FI­FA to in­ter­vene to solve prob­lems which will help their foot­ball change its course of di­rec­tion and im­prove their com­pe­ti­tion blue­print.

TT football is already at this stage. No professional football for 12 months, clubs ejected from continental competitions due to our glorious leader's inability to fill in bloody paper work, collapse of positive progress on the league, total disregard for the new constitution, fractures in the board that sees factionalism win over football, and they expected big attendances? I mean they're higher than the Pro League ever got, but there's precious little local attachment for a number of these clubs - why beg a community that you're not part of? We're rapidly reaching "scrap the whole bloody lot and rebuild" territory.

Would it interest you to know that ...?

Under the Glorious Leader's watch, the TTFA is ONE of only three FIFA member associations within CONCACAF NOT to have been responsive to requested submissions from FIFA regarding reporting on club licensing and related club data.

The TTFA holds that honour with Montserrat and SVG.

Would it interest you to know that ...?

This absence of diligence came significantly before the exclusion from the CONCACAF Champions League ... and was not directly related to that sanction ... HOWEVER, had the Glorious Leader been attentive to the appropriate conditions on the ground in the office, the TTFA would have recognized that omission (or commission, assuming that the non-compliance was not instructed) as a harbinger of things and might have avoided the embarrassment.

One has to applaud the imagination of the Glorious Leader though ... not facilitating reporting when licensing and reporting go hand in hand.

It's notable that ... (let me quote with specificity) ... "... a number of reminders were sent ..." in this regard.

Between 2017 and 2019 there was more than ample time for the Glorious Leader to put his house in order ... yet still the Letters to the Editor flow singing the Glorious Leader's praises. Building one Home, yet mashing up the one yuh live in must be a thing to be applauded.

Was Ms. Lynch scapegoated and dismissed merely because W Connection was one of the clubs that suffered DJW's self-inflicted wound? After all, other screw-ups have gone unpunished.

[Flex]

Corneal expresses concern with T&T players.
By Ryan Bachoo (Guardian).

For­mer T&T foot­baller and now an­a­lyst of the game Alvin Corneal has slammed the self­ish­ness of some play­ers on the na­tion­al team fol­low­ing the lat­est 2-0 de­feat at the hands of Venezuela on Mon­day night in Cara­cas, Venezuela.

“From my ex­pe­ri­ences, I get the dis­tinct be­lief that some of them are not team play­ers. They are play­ing abroad and think ‘we are back home, and we are su­per­stars…’” Corneal said in an in­ter­view dur­ing CNC3’s The Morn­ing Shot on Fri­day.

He went fur­ther in nam­ing Seat­tle Sounders FC left-back, Jo­evin Jones, who plays for T&T in the same po­si­tion as one of the cul­prits. He said, “Jo­evin Jones is one in point, won­der­ful and tal­ent­ed foot­baller, but he wants to play for him­self and he wants to have his way, and be­cause of this we are los­ing a play­er of im­mense tal­ent and he’s on the side­line all the time.”

While Corneal was crit­i­cal of some of the play­ers, he de­fend­ed Den­nis Lawrence against grow­ing crit­i­cism. The T&T head coach has not won a game in 14 match­es which com­pris­es 10 de­feats and four draws, but Corneal said the is­sues go be­yond the field of play.

Corneal, a for­mer Maple stand out, and who al­so scored 69 goals in 119 ap­pear­ances for the na­tion­al team be­tween 1955- 1969 said, “Yes, he has not had good re­sults, but you got to look down the line be­cause the op­por­tu­ni­ties have not been giv­en to him to make him have all the tools to im­prove the qual­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s foot­ball. We must un­der­stand that foot­ball is not on­ly on the field, but it’s al­so in the ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fices as well. It is the plan­ning that takes a lot of time and a lot of ef­fort for teams to be very co­he­sive.”

Corneal, a for­mer FI­FA in­struc­tor and tech­ni­cal an­a­lyst, went fur­ther in stat­ing that the for­eign-based play­ers have not prop­er­ly gelled with the lo­cals. He said, “Life, I know, is be­com­ing very dif­fi­cult for him be­cause he’s got choic­es to make of play­ers at home and play­ers abroad. That’s very dif­fi­cult be­cause these play­ers abroad are get­ting in­for­ma­tion dif­fer­ent­ly. There are dif­fer­ences be­tween coach­es and sys­tems.”

With five weeks left to the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion’s (TTFA) elec­tion, Corneal, who coached a Caribbean team from 1982-1983 and 1993-1994, was stern in his analy­sis that it doesn’t mat­ter if pres­i­dent David John-Williams is re­moved. He said, “If the con­sti­tu­tion is not dealt with be­fore the elec­tions then as far as I’m con­cerned, it doesn’t mat­ter who gets the pres­i­den­cy or any­thing else.”

In say­ing that com­mu­ni­ty foot­ball has been ne­glect­ed by the TTFA, Corneal stressed on the im­por­tance of con­sti­tu­tion­al change with­in the body. “If they go in­to the elec­tions with­out look­ing at that con­sti­tu­tion, they will be fight­ing a dead­ly bat­tle. Sim­ply be­cause, the fact that the con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s foot­ball has been pros­ti­tut­ed in every sin­gle way and no­body seems to wor­ry about what hap­pens there and now we wor­ry about what hap­pens on the field,” Corneal said.

[pull stones]

This old dude is a DJW apologist or what? he needs to put blame where it rightfully belong. in this article he talks about defending dennis when dennis is the one overlooking good players to play the players that he likes, so when he gets flogged with the players he insists on, then who’s fault it is exactly? 

as for the players, if Alvin don’t know by now that’s how trini players are, they get besides themselves and very swellheaded with the littlest of success.

[maxg]

This old dude is a DJW apologist or what? he needs to put blame where it rightfully belong. in this article he talks about defending dennis when dennis is the one overlooking good players to play the players that he likes, so when he gets flogged with the players he insists on, then who’s fault it is exactly? 

as for the players, if Alvin don’t know by now that’s how trini players are, they get besides themselves and very swellheaded with the littlest of success.

I get the impression, only your opinion and analysis matters. Anyway, although I don't agree with everything Alvin Corneal writes, have some respect even if he is an 'old dude'. He has played, coached and involved in more National football than most of us will ever experience in our lifetime. We tend to not give credence and disregard our past heroes and representatives while they are alive.
 Read, assimilate, agree or disagree but shouldn't be necessary to denigrate. We all get the(and your) DL point. I think Alvin just expressing an opinion, no one can know for sure what will be the correct answer.
God can pick our best players and Jesus coach the team, and look how as man, he get crucify- doh I not really a bible kinda guy- yet so many still believe and follow.
  Btw, what's YOUR plan ? Yes, Fire DL, replace DJW, revamp TTFA. Then we sure to win the next 5 of 10 ? I don't really think so nah. In your plan, include your coach suggestion, how you gonna pay him, players you select - hoping your coach selects the same players - and their incentives to them, given the situation we are in today, future program and technical development, financing, and finally time-frame for future successes. If we have a new coach today, would the your best team win the next 3 games ? If so, throw yuh candidacy hat in the ring, man. I sure you will get a ton of support with those guarantees you promise. 

[pull stones]

This old dude is a DJW apologist or what? he needs to put blame where it rightfully belong. in this article he talks about defending dennis when dennis is the one overlooking good players to play the players that he likes, so when he gets flogged with the players he insists on, then who’s fault it is exactly? 

as for the players, if Alvin don’t know by now that’s how trini players are, they get besides themselves and very swellheaded with the littlest of success.

I get the impression, only your opinion and analysis matters. Anyway, although I don't agree with everything Alvin Corneal writes, have some respect even if he is an 'old dude'. He has played, coached and involved in more National football than most of us will ever experience in our lifetime. We tend to not give credence and disregard our past heroes and representatives while they are alive.
 Read, assimilate, agree or disagree but shouldn't be necessary to denigrate. We all get the(and your) DL point. I think Alvin just expressing an opinion, no one can know for sure what will be the correct answer.
God can pick our best players and Jesus coach the team, and look how as man, he get crucify- doh I not really a bible kinda guy- yet so many still believe and follow.
  Btw, what's YOUR plan ? Yes, Fire DL, replace DJW, revamp TTFA. Then we sure to win the next 5 of 10 ? I don't really think so nah. In your plan, include your coach suggestion, how you gonna pay him, players you select - hoping your coach selects the same players - and their incentives to them, given the situation we are in today, future program and technical development, financing, and finally time-frame for future successes. If we have a new coach today, would the your best team win the next 3 games ? If so, throw yuh candidacy hat in the ring, man. I sure you will get a ton of support with those guarantees you promise. 

oh did I smash your corn? I take it you must be a senior citizen, well get this, it’s our elders ( hope it’s appropriate enough for you) who have us in this quagmire and they’re quite happy with the outcome from sports to quality of life in trinidad, and I see no one apologizing.

this is why we remain the boo boys of concacaf. we are quite happy with underachievement and mediocrity is our comfort zone. most rated teams in concacaf including El Salvador knows that when they’re coming to trinidad to play a home and away leg it’s easy points in the bag guaranteed, we are a low hanging tree and everyone knows that. they don’t feel that way going to Jamaica or haiti even though we have way more resources and facilities at our disposal to be a much better footballing nation than those two, yet we still suck at the technical and administrative level.

the USA lost a few games in the hex and missed out on the World Cup and their federation president handed in his resignation despite winning the gold cup countless times and going to the World Cup every time since 1990 and at our expense. for the past 25 years mexico has changed coaches for every world cup despite the success of those coaches by winning the gold cup and taking them to a world cup, is it any mystery why we struggle just to get a draw against these teams?


it’s poor thinking like mr corneal’s that have us hamstrung as a nation in totality, be it sports  quality of life  education  economics  technology  infrastructure  politics. the people who are in charge in this country and those who are appointed to high positions are only there as a means to an end. but please don’t take my word for it.

we went to a world cup for the first time and after the taste of success you would think that we would build on it, but jack warner had other plans. in his mind going to the world was a way of getting even richer in spite of setting our football back 20 years, and only for the good of his own pockets.

Raymond timkee was doing a decent job of getting our football out of the doldrums, yet it wasn’t even 4 years when our football fraternity decided he wasn’t working fast enough for them, as somehow we were entitled to more success than we were experiencing so they put DJW in the drivers seat, and this appointment proved disastrous as he took football back another 10 years. same could be said for politics and other areas of our existence. we are so prone to poor thinking.

pat manning had us on a treadmill to development but mrs persad bissessar had other ideas, she interrupted that progress under the pretext that she could do way better just like DJW, but it was only a means to an end, her intent was to steal and make her friends wealthier while destroying the good work that was put in place by the previous administration.

so please sir, not because I don’t live in trinidad means I don’t know the mentality of the people or what’s taking place there. I am there a few times a year and those people are not patriotic and could care less about that country. everyone is out for themselves or on the take and no one cares about service to nation, instead everyone is looking for handouts or a way to beat the system, in fact it’s quite sickening to behold.

it’s true that mr corneal has been in football for a very long time and has made his contribution, and he should be commended for his long standing service (point taken), but so did mr Sunil gulliati and el paco hernandez, but that didn’t stop their people from making plain how they felt about them? and i think I’m entitled to say what I feel about Alvin corneal without being made to feel like I’ve commited treason.

[maxg]

What ? smash my corn.       Yup, i'm a senior citizen. Blasted elders. So  no suggestion, no plan. ok, carry on.

[pull stones]

What ? smash my corn.       Yup, i'm a senior citizen. Blasted elders. So  no suggestion, no plan. ok, carry on.

first of all i’m nothing but a fan who has no power to change a single thing in trinidad be it political social or other wise, i guess you already know that. but what i do have is a say as a trinidadian who wants the best for his place of birth and how i’d like to see us progress as a tiny but blessed nation who has made very notable contributions to humanity and to ensure the children coming behind has a clear path to greater success.

i do have to confess that it pains me to see a little thriving nation with so much potential go to utter waste at the hands of clueless self serving educated fools who have no problem with watching our children underachieve and steam rolled by other nations who has way less than us.

when i tuned in to the under 15 games a few months ago and watched our young men trampled by venezuela and panama it hurt me to my core, and not that we loss the game, but because this has been going on for far too long and no one cares enough to fix it. it’s like being in the twilight zone where you’re trapped in a very predictable scenario that happens every time a big tournament comes around, and you’re powerless to stop it, and this tragedy happens at all age levels of our football and no one at the top has the testicular fortitude to say enough is enough and put an end to it. as it stands we’re just happy to send our children out there unprepared to be shamed and scoffed at like a side show.

We are too rich, too talented, too blessed with all the facilities and resources at our disposal to be lagging behind like this. and this is not a hard equation to figure out and solve, all it takes is people at the top who care enough to make the effort and get up off their asses and do something about it, and it’s an easy fix.......that is........if they’re bothered enough to get up off their fat asses and get it done.

[Flex]

Corneal uncertain of Gold Cup qualification.
T&T Express Reports.

Gold Cup doubts

“Will they qualify for the CONCACAF (Gold Cup)? How can I tell you yes when they can’t beat Bahamas,” stated Alvin Corneal, the former Trinidad and Tobago national team footballer and coach.

The pressure to qualify for the 2021 Gold Cup in a month’s time has increased given T&T‘s early exit from Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying.

Should T&T qualify for the Gold Cup, head coach Terry Fenwick is guaranteed a two-year contract renewal and a salary upgrade to U.S. $25,000 a month, due to controversial clauses included in his contract when he signed a deal with the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA).

The Soca Warriors will play Montserrat from 9.30 p.m. on Friday, July 2 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Former Caribbean whipping boys Montserrat have adopted an organised team made up totally of England-born players and have improved significantly, drawing 1-1 recently and also three times losing by a single goal to El Salvador, while also holding Caribbean rivals Curacao, Antigua and Barbuda and St Lucia to draws in recent years.

Should T&T get by Montserrat, they will advance to a second playoff round at the same venue on Tuesday 6 July against the winners between Cuba and French Guiana. The winners of that tie go into the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup group stage, beginning with a preliminary match against giants Mexico, against whom T&T drew 4-4 with in their last Gold Cup outing in 2015. Corneal was speaking on the Alcons Recon podcast, dissecting T&T’s recent World Cup exit.

He anticipated that T&T will have to improve significantly to reach the Gold Cup. Some of hint of the needed improvement came in the final World Cup qualifier on Tuesday, a 2-0 win over St Kitts and Nevis. He said the previous 0-0 draw with the Bahamas was a huge disappointment.

“It was a horrible display of football by them. I make no apologies to say that, despite the fact that a number of these players have represented Trinidad and Tobago and they have played in various parts of Europe,” said Corneal. They did not allow the Bahamas to realise that they should not even be on the same field with them when it comes to competitive play.”

And Corneal surmised that the Caribbean had lost out by having one of its few teams that can compete with the best team in CONCACAF, knocked out at such an early stage. “The last thing the Caribbean would want to hear is that the Bahamas threw Trinidad and Tobago out of the Qatar 2022 World Cup,” Corneal said.

[pull stones]

This minstrel is another part of the problem with football in TT, full of opinions but never got up off his ass and at least did something substantial for football. so what he had a coaching school, but did he have any top notch coaches, did they even has a proper base to develop players?

 oh Alvin please pack in man, you too has failed so as the rest of trinidad and tobago’s football fraternity with their tournament frenzy. you all fail to realize the sport need fixing before we could achieve any kind of success, so fix the blasted sport and stop complaining every six months when we lose a game.