Trinidad and Tobago captain Stern John, in the following remarks, express his disappointment following the country's dismal showing in the final Group A encounter of the 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cup in Miami against Colombia. T&T suffered a 2-0 defeat at the feet of Colombia and will now shift their attention to the August 17 2006 World Cup qualifier against the United States.
"Obviously I’m seriously disappointed about the performance. We made a mess of ourselves and I know all the guys agree it was like watching an amateur team play even though we know we are all professionals and capable of putting in a professional performance.
We never earned the right to play in the quarter finals with such a performance as we had today. I’m speaking for myself and the rest of the guys. It’s the third Gold Cup I have been to and then have to go home after the first round. It’s a worse feeling when you see that the other teams aren’t better than us. It really was a case where we beat ourselves.
We know how big the next game is for us. It’s a done deal in terms of what is required now. There’s no need to say that is necessary. I think come next month you will see a fitter team and the guys will be more up for it, speaking on my behalf as well. I know some of the fans may be saying that they are too accustomed with these kind of lines now, but to be fair, that’s the only way the situation could turn out now.
This can only be a positive for us. Because we played two good games against Panama and Mexico and then the expectations went high up. Then this Gold Cup performance has brought us back down to earth and make us realize that we have to be more consistent and work harder in all departments of the game.”
Not making any excuses too but I think Colombia showed us no respect in the build up to the first goal. Marvin went down and they saw that, for a while too, and they went on with the game and we all saw what happened after that with the goal. Even the referee saw what happened and he didn’t seem to care. Isn’t that what the FIFA fair play was about. If we were in that situation, we were would have stopped the play and it makes you question what is the purpose of fair play. They demonstrated that they will do anything to win a game and then if we start doing things like that, I bet we would be labeled as a the bad guys. But all in all, the way we played, we didn’t deserve to come away winners. We have got to learn how to play like a winning team on a more consistent basis.
We missed two major players in Dwight and Carlos through club commitments and injury. That’s the reality of the situation and now we must see how well we can work as a team to iron out the problems and get ourselves in order again. I’m not saying that our chances depends on one or two players. It should be a whole team effort and those two guys and the rest of the players are all vital to the overall team."