National Team head coach Leo Beenhakker was forced to end Friday evening’s training session prematurely as heavy rains and lightning brought a sudden change to conditions at the Sunrise Hilton, Ft Lauderdale football facility.
Following a 75-minute session, Beenhakker blew the whistle to kick off a two-sided scrimmage just after the dark clouds started to take up position but after about 15 minutes, the players were ordered off as the rains increased and the lightning flashes became more visible.
The Dutchman was however able to go ahead with his proposed two sessions on Saturday as the “Warriors” continued their build up to Wednesday’s opening 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cup fixture against Honduras at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
Having been here for almost a week now, the T&T have has settled in well mixing the times with a bit of card playing and Playstation Football to relax themselves while the drop by from Trinidadian-born punchman Charles O’Brady of Nature’s Coolers was a much welcomed one for Stern John and company. The old Princes Town resident was thrilled to serve up his sea moss, peanut punch and banana punches to his T&T boys.
Aside from thee football preparations, the news of three shark attacks which also claimed the life of a 14-year-old in the gulf water off Florida has also been a talking point here while the traffic and other forms of celebrations for Monday’s Independence occasion is expected to draw much attention.
But Beenhakker is confident that his team members will keep the focus and a late evening training session is carded for the Orange Bowl on Monday after the team takes the bus ride from Fort Lauderdale to the Intercontinental Hotel, downtown Miami on Monday morning. This will follow another session on Sunday which is also expected to include some Trinistyle Sunday lunches for the contingent from family members and friends living around the area. The T&T posse here, which includes former youth footballer Jason Suite, old mate of Avery John and Silvio Spann dating back to his St Benedict’s College playing days, Tobagonian Wendell Moore and the Sankars who run the Miami-based Mascots Mas band, has gone all out to ensure the “Warriors” stay here is a comfortable one.
Meantime, joining the camp on Friday night was David Nakhid who recently took up the role as opposition team scout and shared some knowledge on his outings to two of the recent World Cup qualifiers while T&T took on Panama and Mexico.
He mentioned that his reports were submitted to and discussed with Beenhakker.
“The exercise got off to a good start as I was away to see some of our opponents over the last two games while our team was playing Panama and Mexico and obviously the intention is for the information to play some sort of role in assisting our preparations for the remaining matches,” Nakhid told TTFF Media. “It was also great to hear about the result against Panama and then to see the guys really put up a good showing in Mexico. I think the situation is a lot different now as compared to before the Panama game. There’s still a lot of work to be done but things are surely looking a lot better for us now and hopefully the input of the head coach and his assistants and with the right attitude and application by the players, we will pull off what is required for us to go through.”