Lack of experience and an unclear system of attack and defence are the reasons for not only a poor showing by the country's futsal footballers against the Dominican Republic in the opening match of the Futsal CONCACAF World cup Qualifiers in Guatemala on Tuesday night but also for the embarrassing 6-2 result.
Clayton Morris, the former national coach said the inexperienced showed in the game as players struggled to play to the rules, but he was also trying to determine what approach to attack and defence was taken by coach Constantine Konstin, that may have been the team's biggest downfall.
"The reason for the poor showing of our futsal national team at Tuesday's CONCACAF Championship game against the Dominican Republic was basically as I mentioned before, the inexperience of our players. It's very difficult as I said before, very challenging to learn futsal in three months because one of the main challenges is adapting to the rules, and looking at the game last night, the basic kicking, on about five or six occasions, we had to turn over the ball to the Dominica Republic because of not having the ball stopped before it was played," Morris, a former national defender with the T&T Strike Squad football team said on Wednesday.
He added: "According to the technical and the tactical aspects of the game, you saw where one team was playing the square passes, about three or four passes square and then the third or the fourth going forward, and then the rest of the guys join the post-up player, which is what happened in the Dominica Republic team. As in the T&T team, we were playing the ball direct, in other words, we were playing the ball going forward too early. So we weren't getting enough time to rotate.
"I don't want to be critical of the coach's approach, but I am not sure what approach he had. I was trying to assess to see what plan we had to counteract what Dominica was doing, and at no time I saw that, more so on the defence.
"Futsal is a game that is about attack and defence, you must be able to defend and you must be able to attack. When you attack, everybody must attack. In futsal when you're in attack, all the players are attackers and in defence, all the players are defenders," Morris explained.
Concerning the country's chances against Guatemala, the former national defender turn coach, said we do not have a chance against the Central Americans, saying "As coach of the T&T team, we played against the Guatemalans and they play quick passing, non-stop football. You will see for yourself," Morris explained.
SOURCE: T&T Guardian