National Senior Football team captain Dwight Yorke has admitted that the Journey to Germany” may have become a bit more complex with four remaining matches but insists that the Trinidad and Tobago “Warriors” are far from packing it in as they now go in search of either third or fourth place in the six-team standings.
Yorke was the most experienced international on the Renschtler Field on Wednesday evening but wearing the captain’s armband and forced to drop back into midfield after the sending off of Dennis Lawrence didn’t have one of those happy endings for the former Manchester United star.
He spent the next couple hours at the Sheraton Hotel listening to head coach Leo Beenhakker’s post match talk and closely monitoring the Costa Rica/Mexico and Guatemala/Panama games.
In the middle of Beenhakker’s talk behind closed doors, the Guatemalans equalized 1-1 and a few moments later, Mexico broke the deadlock against the stubborn Costa Ricans. End results showed a late win for T&T next opponents on September 3 at the Hasely Crawford Stadium and a 2-0 win for Jared Borgetti’s men. It means T&T will now play for a maximum 16 points with two away and two home matches to come.
“That shows that only three points separates us from the available spots to us and we now have to play one of those teams in the next game and the other in the same week. That’s a lot to look forward to from our end,” Yorke told TTFF Media. “We have to beat Guatemala next match,” he said with a clenched fist.
“It’s far from over from us and I know people will be disappointed with the 1-0 loss because we all had our expectations. Unfortunately we didn’t start well and it’s something we must improve and it didn’t turn out to finish as we were hoping.”
The skipper added that he felt good playing in the middle and in fact prefers that position.
“I didn’t have a problem with the position but the manager makes the decision and I have to go by that,” he said.
While the majority of the media reports indicated US dominance in the match and Bruce Arena’s comments left fans thinking his team eased up on the “Warriors”, ESPN.com columnist Marc Connolly had a fairly different view. He said it was the first occasion in some time that the US were made to hold on for a win at home.
“If you take away that early first goal and them being up against it in the first half, it would show that they played a much better game with ten men in the second half,” he told TTFF Media.
“Even though they didn’t have a lot of scoring chances, they were fairly even with the US. Considering they were the ones on the road, I think it’s a pretty good result to take into Guatemala. It’s some time since we saw the US made to work this hard at home.”
The local-based contingent returned home on Thursday and will resume training on Tuesday. Meantime reports that Beenhakker ducked the post match press conference were untrue as it was agreed between the Dutchman and the USSF Media Relations department that interviews be conducted with him and other T&T players outside the dressing room and ESPN and other reporters did in fact do so.