PREVIEW: Nicaragua vs Trinidad and Tobago – Snippets from the Opposing Bench

I

Originally, twenty-five players were announced in the training squad, but at least one other player (Bismarck Veliz, Chinandega FC) has been integrated into preparations by head coach, Henry Duarte Molina. Veliz is a 23-year-old left back who received his first cap a year ago. He has amassed six caps, including two from Nicaragua’s most recent friendlies versus Honduras and St. Kitts-Nevis. Veliz once was part of the national U-20 framework.

Also on the radar, but not named on the announced list, is Spain-based Jaime Moreno Ciorciari who is a 21-year-old Malaga reserve player on loan to Cultura Leonesa, a third division club. Moreno, a center forward, is a former Venezuela U-20 who is eligible to represent Nicaragua through his father. Presumably his decision to cast his lot with Nicaragua is based on the immediate probability of returning to international football. 

In addition to Venezuelan citizenship, Moreno holds Italian citizenship, but there is no imminent or long-term prospect of the Azzurri seeking his services. At the South American U-20 Championship in Uruguay, Moreno was used sparingly off the bench and was not pressed into action as a starter until Venezuela’s final group stage match, when exit from the tournament had been established by the result of the preceding match. To his credit, he scored – albeit versus a Uruguayan lineup adjusted to rest players for the succeeding round. Moreno has not commanded the attention of Venezuelan selectors since then.

Ironically, that goal was the only goal Venezuela scored during the tournament. When players emerge in such circumstances, it is difficult to form firm conclusions. However, inferences may be made, based on the progress of their peers. The player who restricted Moreno’s time on the pitch at the U-20 tournament is today a Sampdoria player on loan in the Swiss Super League. That player (Andres Ponce) is roughly two calendar years younger than Moreno, and has progressed to the Venezuelan senior team. Indeed, several players are ahead of Moreno on Venezuela’s depth and preference chart. Were his declaration of allegiance to Nicaragua a ploy to alert Caracas to impending danger, it would likely fall on deaf ears. Nonetheless, having witnessed the poise with which he latched on to a ball played over the top, and the composure with which he shrugged off the attention of four defending players to slot home, Moreno Ciorciari would present a useful weapon in Nicaragua’s assembling arsenal.

II

When the squad reconvenes, Daniel Cadena, a 29-year-old Spanish-born, naturalized Nicaraguan who plays third tier football in the Icelandic second division, could be present. Cadena was on Trinidad and Tobago soil in February of this year, representing Atlántico FC from the Dominican Republic versus W Connection in the CFU Club Championship, during a heated affair won 4-2 by the hosts. Cadena, based on his tweets, has his bags packed. However, his arrival in Managua seems dependent on a federation cost-benefit analysis. Airfares over the holiday period are not cheap. Under Henry Duarte, Cadena largely has been ignored. The coach was in office nine months before he called Cadena, and in the year since then, the player has returned to the margins.

Should Cadena feature prominently, it would likely be in the second of the friendlies. He is considered a secondary striker who offers options on the left flank, the flank to which he is naturally oriented. He has accumulated seven caps, with a solitary 90-minute contribution that dates to September 2014.

Juan Barrera, the first locally-developed player to sign with a European club, joined the squad a week after the training camp began. One of few players based abroad, he had permission to report to the team on December 26 because his club was involved in the final stages of the Guatemalan Apertura championship. However, due to Comunicaciones’ December 11 loss to Antigua GFC, Barrera could join the group sooner.

Having worn the captain’s armband, Barrera is considered an important player (33 caps, 6 goals). Some arguments contend he is the best player on the team. Barrera is a dominantly right-footed left winger who can play on the opposite flank or through the central channel. He was a troublesome customer in the first half versus Trinidad and Tobago in October 2015. Since then, with Comunicaciones, he has achieved the continuity that previously eluded him during disjointed stints in Panama, Venezuela and Austria (where he participated in the Europa League). However, despite the present agreeable nature of his club form, Barrera is battling for a place in the national team. His use in Guatemala varies from tactical expectations with the national team and his present challenge rests on meeting a harmony of tactical and physical expectations. In his absence, Luis Fernando Copete (27-year-old central defender with 17 caps and 3 goals) is the likely candidate to assume the captaincy. As occurred with Barrera, Copete entered camp several days after it commenced – due to his participation at the M6P Showcase in Mexico, at which American clubs reviewed prospective players.

III

Under Duarte (8-3-4 across all contests), Nicaragua’s preferred system of play is the 4-2-3-1. The system has been utilized faithfully, regardless of whether playing opponents in World Cup qualifying or international friendlies. A review of opponents faced over a two-year period indicates that Nicaragua has applied this approach against a range of systems (4-1-4-1, 4-3-3 offensive, 4-4-2 in a diamond, 4-4-2 double six and the 5-4-1 flat).

During the past year, Nicaragua’s use of a system other than the 4-2-3-1 has occurred only once. In March, they deployed a 4-3-3 defensive system when Panama presented a 4-2-3-1. Versus Trinidad and Tobago in October 2015, Nicaragua used the 4-2-3-1.

In the Duarte tenure (December 2014 to present), Nicaragua has played nine matches at home. The last occasion on which the team played back to back friendlies versus a common opponent (as is the case with the series arranged versus Trinidad and Tobago) was in December 2015, when the Pinoleros defeated Cuba 6-0 on aggregate (5-0 in the opening encounter). The team’s global home record reflects 5 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses. Isolating solely for international friendlies, the home record is 3 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss. Examining only 2016 performances, the Nicaraguans have won 1, drawn 2 and lost 2.

IV

Nicaragua has included Cyril Errington (UES - Universidad de El Salvador) in its pre-selection camp and likely for the friendlies versus Trinidad and Tobago. He is a pacy defender who plays on the right flank. Errington is adjusting well in camp and is a surging contender for a starting position. Initial conversations about bringing him into the national team took place during a recent tour of El Salvador by Nicaragua’s U-17 squad, who were accompanied by the head coach of the senior team.

Errington is a 24-year-old who made his professional debut three years ago. He did not cement a consistent place at club level until the 2015-16 season when he moved from CD Dragon to UES. Despite his club having struggled in the Salvadoran league (they finished dead last), Errington attracted attention. However, although he is a dual citizen of El Salvador and Nicaragua, he was not firmly in the plans of the Salvadoran national team. With his contract having ended, and UES having owed players wages in recent months, a playing platform with Nicaragua offers Errington the opportunity to impress a broader audience during the Copa Centroamericana, and on which to seek greater security each payment cycle.

Errington is the grandson of Cyril Errington Diaz, a Nicaragua-born naturalized Salvadoran who played baseball professionally and represented El Salvador.

V

Oscar Urroz and Byron Bonilla – players who left Nicaragua in their youth – are also included in the training squad. Both moved from Nicaragua to Costa Rica as boys. Many Nicaraguan families move to Costa Rica because of work opportunities.

Urroz was at one time considered for the Costa Rica U-20 national team, but reportedly could not at the time produce documentation that would have asserted Costa Rican citizenship. As is the case of Errington, Urroz and Bonilla are receiving their first call-ups to the national setup.

Urroz and Bonilla play at Sporting San Jose in the second tier of Costa Rican football. However, since their arrival in Nicaragua both players have experienced differing fortunes. While Bonilla played the first half of the national team’s preparation match versus Municipal Liberia on Sunday, December 18, Urroz was dismissed from the training squad prior to the match for indiscipline – the consequence of a rash tackle during training. Although his chance of national selection has been squandered, his presence in Nicaragua has earned him a prospective contract with Managua FC (who finished two spots above the relegation zone in the LNF).

Municipal Liberia is a Costa Rican top flight team engaged in pre-season preparation for the 2017 Clausura. Their tour of Nicaragua featured two warmups. The first versus the national team and the second against local club, Walter Ferretti. Assessment of the preparation match points to Bonilla as having been the most dangerous Nicaraguan player on display. He created multiple threatening situations that the Municipal Liberia defense treated with cynical fouls to disrupt Nicaragua’s rhythm. Nicaragua lost the match 1-0. The winning goal was converted in the 80th minute.

Five minutes before the deadlock was broken, goalkeeper, Diedrich Tellez (33 years old, 5 caps) saved a penalty which he read handily. All of Tellez’s national team matches have been friendlies. He was not the starting keeper of choice during World Cup qualification. However, he has started four of the five friendlies played by Nicaragua this year (against Honduras twice, Panama and El Salvador). He did not see action in the September 2016 friendly versus St. Kitts-Nevis.

Two completely different squads were used by the Nicaraguans in each half of the preparation match held on December 18. The squad used in the opening period comprised several highly probable starters for the first of the two international friendlies (Justo Lorente, Manuel Rosas, Luis Fernando Copete and Meikel Montiel, the player to whom Urroz’s ill-advised tackle was directed).

Last Thursday, before disbanding for the holiday weekend, the Nicaraguan national team held a second preparation match against Real Madriz FC (who finished in sixth place out of ten teams in the domestic league). The outcome of the second match is not known to this writer.

VI

A notable player initially excluded from the training squad is Carlos Chavarria, the co-author of an important goal in Nicaragua’s modest World Cup qualifying history: the second item in their thrilling 3-2 defeat of Jamaica in Jamaica during 2018 qualifying.

Chavarria who has had compelling performances in domestic football with Real Estelí, and garnered CONCACAF Champions League experience, departed Nicaragua to try his luck in Spanish football. The problem is that fortune-seeking has taken him to the Tercera Division, the fourth tier of Spain’s football structure. To fans of Trinidad and Tobago football who have witnessed the contributions of several heroes from the lower tiers of English football (Birchall, Lawrence et al.), the query might be: wherein does the issue lie?

However, Coach Duarte’s view holds that the inclusion of a player from the Spanish fourth tier would devalue the Nicaraguan national team. The areas of discussion that position generates should be obvious, particularly considering the participation of Atletico Madrid B and Getafe B in the same bracket of the league as Chavarria’s club, Alcobendas Sport. But is it as simple as that?

Referring to his conversation with the player, Duarte stated to the media:

“When I learned that Chavarria would play with Alcobendas, I called him to explain what I thought of his decision. I told him clearly, ‘if you want to be on the national team, do not go to a fourth division club. On the national team you have to raise the bar, not lower it’. You cannot bring a player to lower the bar. We have to be ambitious and proud. When he is in the second tier, he will be in the team.”

He continued:

“I don’t know how a Nicaraguan footballer who plays in the top flight, with a national champion club that’s qualified for the CONCACAF Champions League, could conceive of going to the fourth division of another country. He’s devaluing himself and I am not going to devalue my team. My team needs players from the first and second tiers, not from the fourth. In any event, right now he isn’t playing, nor do I have information, nor am I interested.”

In the weeks since he expressed those sentiments, wiser counsel seems to have aided Duarte in reconciling optimality with actuality. There has been a revision of position. CCH9 (on paper, Nicaragua’s answer to CR7) is to be considered for a place in the squad. In fairness to Duarte, an element of frustration stemmed not from the talented player’s departure for Spain, but from the limited action the player has seen while in Spain. Having left Nicaragua in July, Chavarria did not debut until November. His first start occurred only two weekends ago. Apart from multiple trials, his most recent complicating factor was a three-week disruption caused by the work permit application process, during which he was not in Spain. There is understandable concern that the development of a player considered the best of his generation has been impeded.

Naturally, Duarte’s opinion stimulated discussion and was not a universally supported view in Nicaragua. The Spanish Tercera Division has been the point of origination for many La Liga players. Ascribing or imputing mediocrity to it, vis-à-vis the Nicaraguan league, destabilizes one’s footing. In Spain, Chavarria has displayed a mental toughness that should serve him well as he negotiates the challenges of climbing the playing ladder. Having been at the pinnacle of the domestic league, it appears to be the correct move at an appropriately ambitious age. It allows him to be benchmarked against peers, within a system experienced in the identification and promotion of talent. There is no comparable context in Nicaragua.

VII

The “policy” regarding participation in lower league football also raises whether the treatment of Chavarria and interest in Moreno Ciorciari (the Italo-Venezuelan-Nicaraguan) are sufficiently supportable and distinguishable. By mandate, Malaga’s reserves play in the Spanish fourth division. Alcobendas Sport, Chavarria’s team, play in the fourth division. The same tier. But, by moving one tier above on loan from the reserves, Moreno still has not satisfied Duarte’s stated policy of exclusively utilizing players engaged in first or second tier football – a policy which appears to have simmered to merely being a negotiable preference.

Either way, the contrasting narratives present a case study in the caution required of coaches in rendering public pronouncements. Duarte perhaps wishes that he had treated Chavarria’s future tactfully, rather than to have set rigid, public parameters only to erode them with retractive spin. He says his stance has not altered because Chavarria is not guaranteed selection and merely has been called to camp for observation. However, that declaration is hollow because it applies to all players in camp. It is also slightly disingenuous because the Nicaraguan public can sense the coach and player creeping to a rapprochement concluding in Chava’s return to the field.

Although Duarte’s tendency has been to speak frankly about infrastructural deficiencies and the need to professionalize the internal culture of Nicaraguan clubs, by litigating this issue in public, the Costa Rican manager unintentionally rendered a public indictment of the domestic league, when clearly, he is invested in improving and protecting Nicaraguan football. It is a particularly intriguing conversation to have, at a time when Nicaragua has plummeted twenty-five places in the FIFA Rankings released on December 22, because Duarte, when speaking to the media, invoked Nicaragua’s standing in the rankings as a reason why involving players from the fourth division would be unacceptable:

“The Nicaraguan team ranks first for me, and is ranked between the second and third tiers of the best national teams. I can’t ever call players who play in the fourth division. The fourth division in Spain isn’t anything. You have to raise the bar.”

Chavarria was a member of the Nicaraguan contingent that left Port of Spain with a scoreless draw in October 2015. Prior to Spain, he played his football with Real Estelí.

VIII

Real Estelí is the dominant team in Nicaragua’s domestic league. Several the players involved in preparations for the friendlies either are on Estelí’s books or have been on Estelí’s books. Perhaps this presents Nicaragua with the prospect of exploiting formed playing relationships within and across team units. For Trinis, it could either blunt or provoke probing whether mischief yielded a comparable preponderance of current or former players from T&T Pro League club, W Connection, in the national squad.

Real Estelí is the most successful club in Nicaragua. Historically, in Trinidad and Tobago, a similar claim has been made north of San Fernando and south of Port of Spain. However, these days it’s being made by two clubs with a common geography, but opposing interests.

IX

In Managua, tickets for both matches are being promoted at prices the equivalent of $55 TT for the two-game package, and $35 TT for attendance at one match.

With both matches slated for the national football stadium, and that venue being the home ground of several teams in the Nicaraguan league, turnout at the 20,000-capacity stadium should be notable, but not exceptional. Attendance during World Cup qualifying moved from 4,000 (versus Anguilla) to 8,000 (versus Suriname) to 18,000 (versus Jamaica). As an opponent, Trinidad and Tobago should inspire attendance in the middle range of these figures or better.

The most recent occasion on which a meeting between teams from Nicaragua and Trinidad and Tobago took place was the July 23, 2016 battle between San Juan Jabloteh and Real Estelí, during the CONCACAF U-13 Champions League in Mexico City. San Juan Jabloteh prevailed 2-1.

Despite the climate of acrimony and cynicism enveloping Trinidad and Tobago football, everyone should be pulling for no reversal in outcome versus Nicaraguan opposition.