Camps: Soca Warriors must make changes
By WALTER ALIBEY Thursday, November 27 2008
click on pic to zoom inOliver Camps, TT Football Federation president...PRESIDENT of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) Oliver Camps is confident that Trinidad and Tobago’s Soca Warriors can qualify from the six-nation CONCACAF Final for the FIFA World Cup in 2010.
The draw for the regional finals was made in South Africa on Saturday night and Trinidad and Tobago will battle for one of the three and a half spots.
Apart from the twin-island republic, others in the fray are Mexico, Costa Rica and the United States, who have been regular qualifiers from the region.
The other nations are El Salvador and Honduras which topped their groups ahead of the final round last week; and 1998 World Cup qualifiers Jamaica.
The Soca Warriors will open their campaign February 11 against the Salvadoreans away, before the return leg on August 12 at a venue to be decided (either the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain or the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo).
Yesterday Camps, who is one of the longest serving members in the football federation expressed the view that though he would have preferred an “easier group”, he admitted that at this stage there is no “easier group”.
His only hope is for coach Francisco Maturana to select a larger pool of players so that he can make quick and numerous changes when necessary.
“I expect the coach to make lots of changes or have players at his disposal when the need arises,” Camps said.
“At this stage we have got to win every match. We cannot afford to look for wins for our home games and draws or victories for our away matches. Ideally, it is the perfect plan but we have got to go out there and look for victories in all our matches,” the local football official said.
Trinidad and Tobago whipped Cuba 3-0 in their last group semi-final encounter at the Hasely Crawford Stadium to advance to the final round next year.
The result followed a historic 1-0 win over the USA and an equally impressive first-leg win over the Cubans in Havana.
“All I know is that the Trinidad and Tobago team will qualify out of the group for the World Cup in 2010. We have a good bunch of players who have shown their ability, just as we did back in 2006,” Camps said.
From the group, the top three teams will qualify for the South Africa World Cup with the fourth place team moving on to a play-off with the team that finishes fifth in the South American group of qualifiers.
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