Why the TTFF must support the Pro League

The first was a news release advising that a group of Under-23 players had been selected to train for a tour of Bermuda at year’s end; the second was an article quoting Terry Fenwick on confirmation of his return as head coach at San Juan Jabloteh.

It was on the eve of T&T’s World Cup qualifier at home to El Salvador a few months ago that I first raised the subject. In predicting a win for the Soca Warriors, I cautioned that the task of making up on lost points in the final matches in order to miraculously qualify for South Africa would prove beyond the capability of Russell Latapy and his charges.

I felt then (and still do) that in many areas the national players were well below the standard of their counterparts in the other four surviving Concacaf teams and suggested that it was high time the TTFF began a realistic developmental plan, if not for the game at all levels, at least where the senior national team was concerned.

The plan would involve eliminating all the players who would be past their best by the time the next World Cup campaign comes around, and building a new unit based mainly on the better emerging players in the TT Pro League, as well as members of the National Under-20 squad.

My suggestion also included training for the League’s coaches with a view to raising standards of play and fitness among the clubs and streamlining their approaches to the game.

Ordinarily, news of an Under-23 tour would not command more than a few lines. However, this latest proposed tour means some very promising future prospects will not be idle when the current season ends- an important break from a past in which  tours have been organised mostly whenever there is a major tournament on the cards.

Admittedly, this trip came by invitation but it’s a start nonetheless. It suggests that someone in authority sees the importance of keeping together skipper Leston Paul and company, on whom so much time and money have been spent.

Of course, there are questions even in that news item: for one, other players who narrowly missed the age limit and thus could not have been considered for the Under-20 World Cup were not in the shortlist.

Is it that our selectors do not look beyond the established players for talent? Secondly, 33 men were called to training but, up to the time of writing, no coach had been named for the squad! Still, it is a start.

The move comes at the end of a year in which neither our national teams nor our clubs performed with any consistency or distinction in international competition.

The World Cup campaign collapsed in the most painful and embarrassing series of disasters - an eventuality that was highly predictable after the powers-that-be ignored a wave of criticism and retained the Colombian Francisco Maturana as head coach for the final phase of qualifying, only to hand the fallen baton to Russell Latapy when the race was all but over.

The Under-20s, having enjoyed unprecedented levels of preparation against quality opposition on several overseas tours, scored only once and failed to take a single point from their three group matches in Egypt.

The Pro League clubs completed the tale of woe, with neither Jabloteh nor W-Connection getting into the final stages of the Concacaf Champions League (although the latter did manage to topple a few big names before bowing out).
 
Mention of those two leads me to the article on Fenwick and his return to Jabloteh. It can be no coincidence that our leading clubs are faring no better than our national teams. As I pointed out in that earlier piece, one is a feeder for the other; while we may have the occasional striker playing abroad, it is from our national league that the bulk of our national team is selected.

The benefits of touring and playing the occasional visiting side cannot be maximised if steps are not taken to improve the quality of the individual players; like the runner who covers the same distance at the same pace every day, performance levels will remain constant.

Thus a more critical element of rebuilding must be the development of individuals and their ability to flow as a team. Players spend far more time in training with their clubs than with their national squad, so it follows that great effort must be made to raise the quality of play in the Pro League, thus making the task a lot easier for whomever is national coach.

Being a regular at Pro League games, I am quite familiar with many of the teams and have my own opinion about playing standards.

At present, the league provides far more than just a national championship. Messrs. Dexter Skeene, Larry Romany and company must be congratulated for seeking out and harnessing corporate financing for their premier competition and a growing list of other tournaments.

But the “smaller” clubs lack quality personnel, resulting in many one-sided contests; the best players are concentrated in the “big” teams and these are seldom extended - a problem reflected when the same players don the red, white and black (or have to face Chivas or the Chicago Fire in Concacaf club competition). It is not only individual ability; sometimes one has to wonder whether some teams even understand the notion of playing to a plan.

Goals decide matches. However much the game of football may have evolved, that remains a constant.  Too often, however, Pro League encounters are decided through bursts of individual brilliance rather than some discernible plan or ploy.

A case in point would be the demise of San Juan Jabloteh, the perennial giants whose year is already over with not a single trophy to show for their efforts.

St Lucian Earl Jean had the toughest possible debut season in management and has already come under the axe but was it simply coaching that brought about Jabloteh’s demise?

Jean may well have been the victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jabloteh’s glorious immediate past coincided with its sponsorship contract with CLICO and the advantages of having a formidable budget.

Sporting a core of top players such as Cornell Glen, Aurtis Whitley, Angus Eve, Trent Noel and Keyeno Thomas, they were able to- and did- buy players from rival clubs at will, regularly relieving themselves of those who did not fit in or failed to produce immediate results.

Jabloteh were on top but was it the result of brilliant coaching or simply assembling the best men? Fans would often be heard to ask what they were playing. What were their tactics?

Then suddenly came the economic downturn and the near-collapse of CLICO and the entire CL Financial Group. The gravy train dried up. Fenwick was gone as were Glen, Noel and Cyd Gray; Whitley, too, opted to showcase his wares at United Petrotrin.

Thus it was that in 2009, Joe Public took over as top dog. Jack Warner’s club now had arguably the biggest purse; they recruited the best available talent, even taking 2008 Player of the Year Noel on the rebound (after an ill-advised detour to Petrotrin). They went on to a resounding league success while collecting a cupboard full of trophies.

Shades of Jabloteh! For the astute observer, it has long come to the point when the Team of the Year can be predicted before the onset of competition; all one needs is the off-season recruitment information.

In the article reporting Fenwick’s return, the Englishman is quoted as saying that he plans to restock and rebuild: “I am looking to recruit some young quality players from the school system, and add some players from other clubs who will be out of contract,” (Express, Nov. 30).

Chances are the pendulum will swing right back to San Juan; if Jabloteh can find the resources to acquire Fenwick for a third time, it’s a safe bet he will be afforded the funds to get the players he wants.

At the other end of the scale, Jamaal Shabazz and Caledonia continue to be the nearly men; North-East Stars have already disintegrated, and teams like Rangers, Police and Tobago United are going nowhere.

Lest these comments be construed as a personal attack on any individual or club, let me state clearly that I merely chose the best examples to illustrate my point that coaching and tactics are not necessarily the major determining factors for success or failure in the T&T Pro League.

The TTFF, however, must make the connection in terms of the bigger picture - the national teams. For example, the big clubs do not need - or use - genuine defensive midfielders; they enjoy so much possession they understandably think that they do not need to.

Then World Cup qualifying or the Gold Cup approaches and a good hatchet man to win the ball from Honduras or Costa Rica cannot be found. The club “stars” play basic two-concept down-the-wing-and-cross football and opposing defences cannot stop the incoming headers.

When we come up against the U.S., the same players try the same tactic and cannot figure out why they can hardly get in a single cross, let alone get a head on the ball! Football authorities must work with the League to remedy the problem.

While the governing body cannot (and should not attempt) to stop the “buy to win” system, it can move to help the weaker clubs and bring some balance to the competition.

In so doing, it will help to raise the level of competitiveness necessary to mould smarter, sturdier and better-skilled national players. Clearly, the current programmes are not producing the desired results.

Ironically, the means to do so are literally within their grasp. The Federation can organise higher levels of training for all the club coaches through its Special Adviser.

As its longest-serving executive, Warner enjoys such influence in FIFA as to be able to draw technical experts from among the world’s leading clubs and associations in order to inject much-needed knowledge into the hard-working coaches from the country of his birth.

The time seems right to move past the usual weekend clinics at the Centre of Excellence and work on trips to Europe and South America, where serious coaches can observe and absorb.

The list is long but at the top must be Shabazz, Dereck King, Eve, Mike Mc Comie, Brian Williams, Ross Russell, Hutson Charles and Wesley Webb, not forgetting Stuart Charles-Fevrier, the St Lucian who has contributed so much to national football through W-Connection. In the long term, the programme must be expanded to include the personnel from the schools such as St Augustine’s Mike Grayson and Mucurapo’s Selris Figaro.
 
No one can dispute that one such stint for each of the men handling our current and future players would do far more for the national good than all the Maturanas, Porterfields and the like that money can buy.

The timing could not be better; the year 2010 has all the makings of a productive year in terms of developmental work. Unburdened by World Cup South Africa considerations and charged with hosting one major tournament in the form of the FIFA Under-17 Women’s Championship, the TTFF must recognise the opportunity for remedial work and exploit it to the fullest.

After all, what greater incentive can the authorities need to take action now than the ignominy of the latest failed World Cup campaign?