National Quarries North East Stars player Anthony Wolfe will travel on Monday to join the Trinidad and Tobago squad in Connecticut as a replacement for Brent Rahim.
Leo Beenhakker was forced to make the late call after Rahim pulled up with a calf strain in training on Sunday morning and he will now journey back to Trinidad.
Wolfe will be the 18th player in the camp with Scott Sealy, Avery John, Dennis Lawrence, Shaka Hislop, Kelvin Jack, Collin Samuel and Stern John all checking in at the Sheraton on Sunday. Marvin Andrews was not here up until Sunday night.
Monday’s session is carded for 9:30 when Beenhakker will obviously pick the pace up ahead of Wednesday’s clash with the Americans.
The camp so far hasn’t been at all a down-spirited one. Skipper Dwight Yorke has been carrying the troops up until Sunday and Beenhakker hasn’t let anything affect the overall mood and shape at the Sheraton.
So far at training, casual observers, joggers and kids playing with footballs have been all too eager to run down the official Nike match balls that the “Warriors” have used in training and goalkeeper coach Michael Maurice has made a decent enough replacement in goal in the absence of Hislop and Jack.
One of the exercises Beenhakker has been using with assistant Wim Rhisbergen monitoring has been interval training where the focus is on ball possession and tactical awareness going forward and defending as well as increase in heart rate over shorter distances.
It involves three players per side playing within an 18 yard space. Additionally, one is placed to stand in front of each of the two small goals to provide, not protection, but support for the attacking team. The players are encouraged to take no more than two touches on the ball as they pass it around on their way to goal, then the player closest to the goal has to play it into the one standing in front the goal who in turns lays it off for an oncoming player (not the final passer) to shoot home. The game is played over three minute periods.
“It really is used to help develop closer ball possession and support among the players. As you can see in the match itself when we take the ball out of defense and go forward, sometimes when the ball gets to the midfielders and they try to get it up to the forwards, the play breaks down because there is not sufficient support at that stage but too many gaps. It also helps to improves the player’s thinking and heartbeat rate,” Rhisbergen explained.