Trinidad and Tobago head coach Leo Beenhakker appeared to be a bit more satisfied man on Wednesday night, not based on the 1-0 loss to Alianza Lima but moreso because of a much more disciplined and resolute performance from his team than last week’s 2-0 defeat to North East Stars at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.
The Dutch-born coach expressed some degree of satisfaction with Wednesday’s showing during the post match press briefing.
“We let up a stupid goal but the first half was good-the second half not good,” Beenhakker said when asked to give his thoughts on the match.
“You have to understand, which is one of the main things we talked about and we were practicing that if you have good players, you still don’t have a good team. One of the problems you always have with a national team is that all the players are playing with different clubs and when you them together that doesn’t mean that you automatically have a good team.
“Another thing is of course, again the reason why we didn’t play that well in the second half, was we had a lot of training sessions with two per day and we did a lot of work so it’s normal that some of the players were tired. Totally I’m satisfied . It was at least a good start and we saw some players that we didn’t know too well because we didn’t work with so I thought it was a very useful evening to prepare the team for the Panama game,” Beenhakker said, adding that he will not change much of the team for the El Salvador game next Wednesday but his approach will depend on the players available as the US-based quartet of Avery John, Leslie Fitzpatrick, Marlon Rojas and Cornell Glen all return to their clubs on Thursday.
“We worked on a system and we need time to make it better but in that way we have made important decisions and this is the way we will try to play. This depends of course of everyone is available and in good shape and if they understand each other well. That’s the main aim for the next two camps now.”
Beenhakker made it clear that he was not into the thinking of player selection based on their location of profession, when quizzed on it by a reporter.
“I am not talking about local players or players from overseas. I am talking about players who have a passport of Trinidad and Tobago. I am not obsessed with local or overseas players. I am just looking for the best players to make the best team and that’s the job. Then you have good organization on the pitch with everybody knowing what he has to do and what his position is. That’s the main part of football that we are working at which we showed a lot of in the first half. We didn’t give any chances away and we dominated the game in the first half.”