For local fans, it’s the match of a lifetime for Trinidad and Tobago to come up against England in their second Group B encounter at the 2006 World Cup Finals.
Trinidad and Tobago have never faced England and since 1985 have only met one of the other teams in the group – Paraguay. In March 1989 the two sides locked horns in two friendly fixtures, which ended 2-2 and 1-1.
Team manager Bruce Aanensen along with assistant George Joseph and TTFF Media traveled by train for three hours from Leipzig along with their FIFA liaison officer, Dutchman Mark Boss, to Nuremberg to inspect the match venue for the fixture against England at the Nuremberg Franken-Stadium which by match date on June 15 at 6pm (German time) will have a purchasable ticket capacity 32, 341 of which the T&T Football Federation will be entitled to 8 percent of, just as the English FA. The total seating capacity of the stadium is 36,898 but will be downgraded to fit with the FIFA directions. The Nuremberg venue will also host the Mexico/Iran, Japan/Croatia and USA/Ghana encounters.
The venue’s last big outing was the 2005 Confederations Cup clash between Germany and Brazil and it also hosted the Germany versus Argentina encounter. The nearby Hilton Hotel, less than 10 minutes drive away, which T&T will be staying at for the match, also hosted the Argentines earlier this year.
The management team will visit the Westfalen Stadium in Dortmund on Sunday morning. This venue will host T&T’s opening match on June 10 against Sweden at a 6pm kickoff. For the Group stage matches like that of T&T’ clash with the Swedes, there will be a 50,768 purchasable ticket capacity and like all Group matches for the teams, T&T will be entitled to 8 percent of those tickets.
Aanensen and company will also visit the Fritz-Walter- Stadium in Kaiserslautern which will be the venue for T&T’s final group fixture against Paraguay on June 20 at 9pm. That affair will have a purchasable ticket capacity of 41,513.
T&T’s hotel for that encounter, the Dorint Kongress in Mannheim, was already inspected by Aanensen and Joseph on Saturday night.
“So far we are just ensuring that all the conditions are what we want for the team for these matches and they have been satisfactory. It’s just a case of us putting the final arrangements in place like sorting out the room bookings, ensuring the bedrooms, dining and fitness areas are fine, seeing that the training pitches are what we expect and that other things like transportation are up to standard,” Aanensen explained to TTFF Media.
While Saturday’s hectic schedule was being followed, head coach Leo Beenhakker and assistant Wim Rijsbergen were heading to Austria to finalise a training site their for the build up and they will then return to Germany on Monday to accompany the current T&T team staff here on a site visit for the training base camp for the World Cup in Rotenberg.
Special Advisor Jack Warner left for Port of Spain on Saturday along with TTFF President Oliver Camps and he maintained that all will be done to ensure that T&T’s conditions are first class for their World Cup preparation and participation. “They will have the works from business class travel, to top of the line treatment at the hotels and the venues from the Local Organizing Committee officers, to even having their own chef with them throughout,” Warner said. “We have of course several things to look after but we shall leave nothing short of top class. After all we are in a top class group with England and the others and we must ensure that we are well represented and mark my word, we will be true team of spirit. I repeat we shall be the smallest nation with the biggest passion in this World Cup.”
Meantime, the FIFA information office here announced further details about general ticketing sales on Saturday.
The third sales period for World Cup will begin on Monday with 250,000 more tickets going on sale. The page on www.FIFAworldcup.com containing the order form will be re-launched at midday, and tickets will be available for ordering until 15 January 2006. As with the first sales period, the tickets will be distributed after a ballot, since it is assumed that demand will outweigh supply. The order in which the bookings are received will have no bearing on the attribution of the tickets.
"The Final Draw on 9 December 2005 in Leipzig saw the match schedule finalised and the individual ties drawn for the various stadia. Fans from around the world now have a chance to order specific tickets. Since we also assume that demand will far outweigh the available allocation of tickets, we will perform a ballot on 31 January 2006 of all orders received. There is no fairer way of distributing the tickets than by drawing lots," Organizing Committee Vice President Horst R. Schmidt said.