Letter to the Trinidad Express
Now that the initial euphoria of getting to the soccer World Cup Finals in Germany 2006 has eased off a little, perhaps this is a good time to decide exactly where we want to go from here.
I would like to suggest that we should not be satisfied in just getting to Germany: we have to set our goals much higher than that. My recommendation is that an ambitious, but achievable target for a first-time World Cup contender would be to finish either first or second in the preliminary group, and qualify for the next round.
This will not be an easy task, given that on past form the T&T Soca Warriors are probably among the weakest teams in the competition, if not the actual weakest. Given this inescapable reality, how can we possibly raise our game to move into the second round draw?
I would like to suggest the following approach: In the past, our national team, like that of most small Third World nations, has been made up from a core of home-based players (those not good enough or lucky enough to land an overseas contract), and the overseas players. What we have always done before international matches is cobble together a team consisting of a mixture of foreign "stars" and the local squad, a few days before the fixture, given the constraints regarding the amount of time the foreign clubs are prepared to release their T&T players. The result has always been a team consisting of players of undoubted individual talent, but as a team playing well below their potential.
In the World Cup, we will be playing at a level far above anything we have done before, and if we are to give a good account of ourselves, it is essential that we change this approach. As drastic as it may seem, I strongly suggest that we need to select our World Cup squad right now: all 24 or 30 players-however many we need. All these players, whether currently local or foreign-based, must leave what they are doing and join the Soca Warriors full time, from now. The T&T team organisers must be prepared to buy out all existing contracts, compensate those players who will suffer any loss over the coming nine months, and set salaries and benefits for the entire squad at an appropriate level.
If this could possibly achieved, I guarantee that Mr. Beenhaaker and the rest of the coaching team could between now and the World Cup next year produce a super fit, highly drilled and ruthlessly efficient version of the Soca Warriors team, playing together with an understanding the likes of which we have never seen before.
We could shock the football world!
Gary N Voss
via email
