In soccer, many coaches like to have a hard man at the back or in the middle. Trinidad has their hardest man at the head of the national team. Dutchman Leo Beenhakker coached the Soca warriors in the Gold Cup and now that they are out of the tournament after a respectable showing, must refocus his players as they try to get back in the race for a World Cup qualifying spot. His no-nonsense demeanor is starting to filter down. Trinidad has no time to waste.
"I have spent 40 years in the game. I have been asked every question. I have told my story, answered everything. I give you five minutes."
Trinidad' s limited player pool was reflected in the few changes made by Beenhakker in the starting lineup in the Soca Warriors' three matches during Gold Cup. But his discipline has produced a more organized and compact team, which played in Miami without its biggest star, former Manchester United forward Dwight Yorke, now in Australia. His limited pool of players notwithstanding, Beenhakker is molding a team in his image, less flashy and more direct. New addition Chris Birchall, who grew up in Stoke, England but now a Trinidadian international (by virtue of his mother) showed promise and scored a goal in the 1-1 tie against Honduras. The players are gaining in confidence and Columbus Crew forward Cornell Glen scored an injury-time equalizer against Panama. "We have the best coach," exclaimed Glasgow Rangers defender Marvin Andrews during a break in a steamy training session in Miami.
Beenhakker's coaching staff includes countrymen Theo de Jong and Wim Rijsbergen, both veterans of the legendary Dutch team from the 1974 World Cup. Rijsbergen conducts the training sessions while the 70-year-old Beenhakker observes and paces. At the hotel, they huddle to discuss tactics and player choices.
In Holland, they say that two Dutchmen discussing any subject will have three opinions on the matter. And this tendency to question and criticize openly has perhaps hardened coaches such as Beenhakker, and many say has hurt the cohesion on the Netherlands squads during long tournaments such as the World Cups. But Beenhakker was not brought in to impose a Dutch system, but to get results in a hurry. He was hired by the Trinidad federation and Concacaf president Jack Warner because of his previous experience with Concacaf soccer scene, and in particular his knowledge of Mexican soccer.
"Trinidad is a very small country, with no international soccer pedigree, which once in a while fights for a chance to enter a big tournament like a World Cup," he explains. "People there live the game with great enthusiasm and passion, and their national team has a chance to qualify. In that sense, it's different from Mexico, where they have great infrastructure and a very strong league. And now Mexico has players with double nationality, and that helps to strengthen the national team greatly."
Beenhakker was the coach of the Dutch team in World Cup 1990, where a team with talents such as Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard was eliminated in the second round by the eventual champ West Germany in what was perhaps the best match of the whole tournament. Yet Beenhakker is remembered more for his club stints, having coached Ajax and Feyenoord in Holland and spent six seasons at Real Madrid, plus stints in Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and twice at America of Mexico, where his brusque manner and testy relationship and exchanges with the local media at press conferences were legendary.
Behind that hard exterior, perhaps, is a man who is aware his talents and vast experience are applied in a footballing backwater, but with the possibility of a triumphant return to the main stage. Trinidad has climbed back into the World Cup picture by beating Panama but losing to Mexico in the last two qualifying matches. They are in fifth place in the final Concacaf qualifying group, but the top three advance (and the fourth-place team faces a playoff with a country from the Asia region).
But the next Trinidad fixture is in August in Connecticut against the United States, which will be looking to clinch its ticket to Germany 2006. The closest the island nation came to qualifying for a World Cup was - coincidentally - Italia 90, when the United States won 1-0 in Port of Spain to spoil the party and wrest the World Cup ticket from the Soca Warriors.
The last time Beenhakker's hard exterior was breached and he got emotional in the sport of soccer, he reveals, was when he led Feyenoord to the Dutch title in 1999. "It was May 1999, and 250,000 people came to celebrate the title of the team in the city where I was born. It was very special".
True to his conditions stated before the chat, Beenhakker winds down the interview after just five minutes. "Last question," he declares. -How would you like to be remembered? Frankly, I don t care," he barks, before concluding the interview.