There is now a call for attacking players on the T&T ‘Soca Warriors’ team to be a lot more hungry and thirsty when it comes to scoring goals.
This call comes from former national striker Ron La Forest who expressed the view that the T&T team should have beaten the United States in the first half alone, of Tuesday’s World Cup Qualifier at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo. The teams played to a goalless draw which means they have both gotten a point each which took them to four points after two matches in the qualifiers.
The US team will now face Guatemala in their next match while the ‘Soca Warriors’ will come up against minnows St Vincent and the Granadines next. However, La Forest who is considered one of the better goalscorers to have graced the colours of the red, white and black of T&T feels the Stephen Hart-led Warriors should not be in this position presently, had they converted the chances that came their way.
He singled out inspirational midfielder Joevin Jones who received a golden opportunity in only the first minute of the match when his name-sake Kenwyne Jones was fed a ball down the right flank and instead of shooting, he pulled it back for the onrushing Jones (Joevin) to spoon his shot over the bar. La Forest said “He should have at least put that one away because opportunities that come do not ever come back again” La Forest said.
The Warriors also could have scored when Kenwyne Jones turned nicely on his marker in the heart of the US defence but saw his shot just whisked past the right upright of US goalkeeper Tim Howard in the 13th minute. And later in the 25th minute speedy striker Cordell Cato sped past two US defenders from an earlier Jones (Kenwyne) delivery but miscued his attempt wide of the post.
La Forest said full advantage must be taken when opportunities like these come. “I think our attackers definitely need to be more hungry and thirsty in front of goal. We have to be more forceful when we are playing in front our home fans and make visiting opponents afraid of us,” La Forest explained. He however praised the T&T team for another good performance, saying “It is the first time in a long while I have seen a T&T team dominate an American team like that in the first half. I have not seen that in a long time, but the other side of this is scoring the goals when they come.”
T&T also had a good chance at scoring late in the second half when Jones (Joevin), on another of his trademark runs down the right flank, centred for Cordell Cato in the 64th minute, but the latter saw harm from the outstretched boot of a US defender and pulled away.
In giving his analysis of the game La Forest said the US team also had a number of chances in the second period of the match and also could have won it.
He feels coach Hart should have brought in defensive midfielder Neveal Hackshaw much earlier as the Americans did their homework at the half-time interval and enjoyed most of the chances in the second half. “They were getting behind our backs consistently in the second half and I thought Hart should have realised this earlier and given them something to think about, which was to bring in a defensive man to stifle their attack” La Forrest explained.
RELATED NEWS
‘Gally’, La Forest want more clinical TT
By JOEL BAILEY (NEWSDAY).
FORMER NATIONAL footballers and coaches Everald “Gally” Cummings and Ron La Forest were both pleased with the showing of the Trinidad and Tobago team in their 2018 FIFA World Cup CONCACAF Zone Fourth Round Group C encounter against the United States.
The match ended in a goalless draw at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo on Tuesday.
According to Cummings, “I thought it was a very good game.
I thought in the first minute of the game we should have scored. We let the Americans off the hook a lot of times.
“All in all, I think the Americans played too comfortable,” added the former TT midfielder and Strike Squad coach. “I think we should have put more pressure on them.
“We have an attacking style of play and I think that is missing in (TT) football right now. When you have somebody to hang, you hang them. We let them off the hook too many times but, all in all, it was a good result for us. And I think this performance augurs well for the future.” Trinidad and Tobago were noticeably slower, in terms of their intensity, in the second half.
Cummings noted, “(the US) had a header that hit the post.
“What happened is a cultural habit,” he continued. “We always start too slow. If you go to the workplace in Trinidad and Tobago, productivity starts an hour or two after. What you see here is a piece of the cloth. We always start slow in a lot of things. If we can (improve) that in our everyday lives, in the workplace, we’ll be a more productive country.” The Stephen Hart-coached squad will face St Vincent and the Grenadines in a pair of Group C games, on March 25 and 29.
And Cummings hopes that the technical staff utilise that time frame to look at newer players.
“There are always better players if you look around,” he said.
“Sometimes you may think you have the best team and there might have players out there who you may have to look at. As a coach, you never stop looking and scouting for talent.” The Hall of Famer also spoke of the need for more clinical finishing by the attacking players.
“I think the last chance that we had, when Joevin Jones hit the ball across, a blind man could have seen he was going to put it across,” Cummings said. “All you had to do was position yourself and we’d have an easy goal. That ball went straight across the field.
“I think we have to learn more about goalscoring, we need to concentrate a lot more on finishing,” he pointed out. “We defend with everybody and I think we need to attack with everybody.” La Forest, the ex-TT striker and Under-17 coach, in his analysis of the game, stated, “we’ll take the point for starters, but I felt we should have won the game from the first half.
“In the second half, we (saw) America take over the game,” he added. “It’s a game of two halves.
The second half, America take over the game, (our) shoulders dropped then, coming down to the last 20 minutes I think we brought back the game to balance. I think we should have won the game in the final (play), the cross ball that Joevin Jones sent in.” La Forest refuted claims that fatigue may have been a reason for the second half display by the hosts. “They’re professional footballers.
Tired is out of the question.
This is their job, this is what they’re getting paid to do.” About the latter pair of substitutes, Keron Cummings and Trevin Caesar, La Forest noted, “what I’ve seen, they bring a great punch to the team. I think Stephen Hart will take a look at them again, in terms of the timing of bringing them on. Those two made a big difference to us.”