National head coach Leo Beenhakker was back in full flight in his role as head coach of new 2006 World Cup finalists Trinidad and Tobago over the last two days as he began working with potential World Cup players at the training camp in Fort Lauderdale.
As London Daily Mirror reporter Andy Lines said emphatically: “This is now a World Cup country we are looking at. You are no longer a team that is trying to make it or a team that almost made it. You are going to be on the World stage in a few months or you can even consider yourself there already.”
Lines journeyed from London with his photographer specifically to visit the T&T training camp and he was not only interested in what Dwight Yorke, Shaka Hislop or Stern John was up to, but he came to inquire more about what the home-based pros were experiencing, their lives as footballers back in T&T and what it meant for some of the young College players to now have the chance of working under Beenhakker’s World Cup set up.
Beenhakker conducted his second session of the camp on Thursday morning under sunshine but with regular intervals of cool breeze and the occasional drizzle. And while he and assistants Wim Rijsbergen and Anton Corneal looked at what the likes of Tony Rougier, Anthony Noreiga and young Kevon Neaves had to offer, an ESPN/ABC World Cup film crew overlooked and shot various clips for their build up programmes on qualified teams for the 2006 World Cup.
On requests of tips of who they should interview as Yorke and the other regulars were not involved, senior producer Natalie Jowett went on to interview few of the players like Cyd Gray, Silvio Spann and Aurtis Whitley (in photo) as well as Anthony Rougier, Atiba Charles, Kerry Baptiste, Errol McFarlane while Lines of the Mirror spoke to some of the other youngsters who Beenhakker has brought on the trip like goalie Jan Michael Williams, Julius James and Osei Telesford.
The former Real Madrid boss told the story in brief about his experience from the start of his tenure with the “Soca Warriors.
“We realized it was almost mission impossible. But we worked a lot and changed a lot of important things We studied the first few matches they played under the former coach, with all my respect, but we noticed within my philosophy there was no balance in the team,” Beenhakker said. “To me one of the main things in actual football is to have balance and a mix of all characteristics and talent of the players to cover everything. That was missing and there was no team with coordination and other things. That was the start and then we had to make it clear that we had to have the ball as much as possible to manage the game. Now look at us today we have made it to the World Cup as a team and we are trying to now prepare as a team. The boys picked it up very well. They were very good to work with from the beginning. The question was not whether they were good or not but realizing that our opponents were not better.”
When asked if he is under any pressure at present to get the team ready for the World Cup particularly with the euphoria over qualification, Beenhakker said: “Not for the moment. I think everyone has the right to be excited and celebrate. Most of these players are based overseas and they know how to handle it. Now they are working and living again in their normal routine.The hardest part was when we qualified to play Bahrain as it was hard to keep them on the ground because the whole country thought it was going to be a walk in the park but in football there is no walk in the park. But the players at the same time realize it will be a hell of a job to be successful in Germany but we know it’s possible to surprise somebody,” Beenhakker said.
“Now we are here to do some more work because we have a World Cup to look forward to.” Beenhakker has already finalized his training sites for the camp in England, Austria and Germany leading up to T&T’s World Cup opener against Sweden on June 10 and he is anticipating the February 28 friendly against Iceland at Loftus Road.
Before all of that, the Dutch-born coach will have a chance to see the players on this trip in a scrimmage against Florida International University from 3:30pm on Friday at the Sunrise ground.