This countrys national senior team arrived in St Vincent and the Grenadines on Friday afternoon confident of shrugging off Wednesdays 2-1 loss to Antigua and Barbuda with a more convincing performance in Sundays Digicel Caribbean Cup return leg with the hosts.
Technical consultant Graham Taylor was among the traveling party and he will continue to play an active part in the sessions leading up to the game. Taylor, on request of head coach Bertille St Clair took charge of Thursdays session at the Antigua Recreation Ground which was made available to the Soca Warriors late in the evening after the rainy conditions passed.
Taylor spoke for about ten minutes to the players before beginning the session which lasted for 73 minutes and seemed to have been well received by all the players. The former Aston Villa boss worked on possession and movement off the ball stressing that his aim was to have passing and shooting team.
I think everyone was very happy with the way the session went, skipper Eve told TTFF Media. What he did too was to get every player very involved and interested in what was going on and he seems to know how to break things down for us to understand. This definitely was a good first session with him.
MetroStars striker Cornell Glen felt the same way. The session went at a good pace and hopefully we can take as much as we can over these next few days to see how it can benefit us as a team. We have heard a lot about Graham Taylor and to actually work with him is certainly a boost for the team, Glen said.
Taylor kept telling the players that the bigger picture was obviously the final round of the 2006 World Cup qualifier starting against the US on February 9 but he didnt play down Sundays match against the Vincentians.
The key to your preparations is knowing all along that you are preparing for the World Cup games but doing it step by step and thats where Sundays game comes in. Over the next couple of days part of the focus has to be getting ready to play St Vincent.
Ive kept telling them that no one knows really what the final team is going to be like but if theres going to be ten players from this current squad or even one player, then it would mean that he would have had to come away with something from this camp and they all know that theres something to look forward to down the road. Trinidad and Tobago will qualify for the World Cup and this build up phase is just a period to put all the pieces in place and to make the road that bit easier, Taylor ended.
Meantime, assistant coach David Nakhid has had to delay his rejoining of the team and will now meet up with the rest of the contingent back in Trinidad.