“As coach of the team I am disappointed,” revealed DIRECTV W Connection Head Coach Stuart Charles Fevrier on Thursday night after letting a two-goal cushion slip against Guatemalan club Xelaju MC at the Manny Ramjohn Stadium in their opening 2012-2013 CONCACAF Champions’ League match.
A scintillating first half by Connection was celebrated with two goals, Hashim Arcia (23rd minute) and Rennie Britto (34th minute), however the Digicel Pro League Champions allowed two late goals by Xelaju substitute Edgar Chinchilla (74th and 89th minutes) tying the game at 2-2.
“I thought we should have won it despite the fact that we didn’t get the preparation games we wanted,” continued Fevrier. “I still felt at that level …and being in the position we were in …and getting the opportunities we got, we should have won the game easily.”
The Connection coach explained, “We had a lot of difficulties with our preparation. We weren’t able to travel to South America (Colombia) to get some strong games because we had problems with flights.
So we went to Tobago and got some games which really didn’t challenge us. I always knew, especially the second half would be very challenging for us because of the match fitness of our players. But I thought we had done enough in the first half to come out on top. In the second half our concentration dropped at critical moments.”
Fevrier defended three second half changes he made adding that striker Arcia complained with a groin pain and defender Joel Leslie Russell picked up a knee injury which led to his decision to introduce Shahdon Winchester and Akeem Benjamin respectively. While midfielder Andrei Pacheco was replaced by Silvio Spann to add fresh legs and experience in the middle.
“I don’t think the changes impacted much,” he said. “I think our staying power in the second half was definitely a challenge for us. And I thought we weren’t able to maintain the same intensity in the second half as we did in the first half. And I put it down to lack of serious games before (the match).
“This was always my main concern going into the game and we saw our players fading in the second half a bit. I don’t think the changes had much to do with what happened in the second half. Obviously we should have gone a little more offensive in the second half, but if you watched the game, they (Xelaju) never created a clear cut opportunity in the entire game. We created at least four clear cut chances and were only able to score two. Their first goal was a scrimmage and their second goal was a good shot from distance.
“We have shown and demonstrated that we are capable of playing against teams, playing at that level. I believe what’s needed now is to try and improve our league so that our players can be competing at a higher level locally, week in, week out. We need to try and improve the local professional league to a higher level of play.”
Connection will travel to Mexico for its next Group 8 match against home-team Chivas Guadalajara on Wednesday 29 August, then to Guatemala against Xelaju on Tuesday 18 September, and hosts Guadalajara on Wednesday 26 September in Trinidad. Following the Group stage, only the top team advances into the quarter-final round.
“We will definitely try to pick it up from here,” assured Fevrier. “We have three more difficult games. I know the entire world would not give us a chance going into those countries to try and win. But we have to believe in our ability, in ourselves and work hard to try and win the three games.
“I know the entire world wouldn’t believe we could win these games. The Caribbean is always looked at as underdogs. Rightly so, because the Caribbean is the only part of the world that is seemingly amateur, while in Trinidad and Tobago we are trying to keep professional football alive. But the beauty of football is that even the underdogs have a chance. We will be going to play in Mexico (in our next match) but we believe we have an equal chance.
“The main task for us now is to prepare …prepare focused, very serious and very professional. This is what we have to focus on. I believe that in the Caribbean we have players with the quality to compete against those teams. We just need to work on the mentality of our players, obviously, and to help them believe that they can do well at that level. I think it’s more psychological than anything else.
“We obviously would be working towards improving, because we have to. We know we are not where we can be. We are not as consistent throughout the ninety minutes as we ought to be. We have three weeks to try and improve. This is the task ahead for us now. We have to try and improve the team, so that the team can be more consistent throughout the ninety minutes.”