After Tuesday's 8-7 penalty shoot-out victory over French Guiana that propelled the T&T Soca Warriors into the group phase of the CONCACAF Gold Cup Tournament in the United States, national coach Angus Eve has now been saddled with more concerns.
Firstly, the mandatory rule that drops yellow cards picked up by players when they are moving from one stage of a tournament to another, is not being used by CONCACAF organisers. This means players who picked up yellow cards for T&T in the qualifying rounds, will move into the group phase with it.
Another major concern for the team is that players may have to be brought in as replacements for others, ahead of the group phase of the competition. On Tuesday the T&T Soca Warriors defeated a gutsy French Guiana outfit 8-7 from the penalty spot, following a 1-1 stalemate at the end of regulation time at the DRV PNK Stadium, which sent the teams to the penalty spot, where T&T had an unblemished record compared to the Frenchmen after Kevin Rimane spot kick was saved by T&T's goalkeeper Nicklas Frenderup.
The win sent Eve and his men through to Group A of the tournament where they will open against regional giants Mexico on Saturday. The other teams in the group are El Salvador and Curacao.
Eve, who had only three weeks ago taken over the coaching job from Englishman Terry Fenwick after a failed World Cup qualifying campaign, congratulated his players on the gutsy win, but he told the media at Tuesday's post-match press conference that he is shocked by the yellow-card rule.
"We heard that these teams (Group A teams) are waiting on us. We're also hearing today that yellow cards picked up in today's (Tuesday's) match will be carried over. It's a bit unfair because it's a different phase, it's the qualifying phase going into the group stage, and at most tournaments in the world, the cards don't carry over like that, from qualifying to the group stage," Eve explained.
To date, the T&T team is expected to carry over into the group stage four yellow cards that were issued during the Montserrat and French Guiana games. The players crossing over with the cards are Neveal Hackshaw and Khaleem Hyland in the Montserrat affair, and goalscorer Curtis Gonzales and Aubrey David from the French Guiana match.
However, he noted: "In saying that, we're always here to challenge ourselves against the best teams. Tournament football is usually four days apart, so we just have to pick ourselves up and I can tell you emotionally, that the guys are drained. So we just have to pick them up, give them a bit of relaxation time and move on."
Meanwhile, with injuries to defender Triston Hodge, striker Judah Garcia and now captain Khaleem Hyland, Eve and his medical staff were forced to do crucial assessments of players to determine whether he will have to bring in any players as replacements.
The former national midfielder turn coach travelled to the tournament with a 26-man squad instead of the required 23-man roster, saying the three additional players were to be used in situations where injuries or illness may take place. However, with four players (Hyland, Garcia, Hodge and Joevin Jones who was injured before the start of the Gold Cup) now a concern for Eve a decision will have to be made.
Concerning the T&T/French Guiana encounter, Eve said apart from fitness concerns by the local players, his team performed fantastically: "We didn't see this team play, we went into it blind. They definitely did their homework, they tried to stifle the pace we had upfront. Kudos to them they played a fantastic game today. What we did at the half, however, was to get some midfielders in there who could tackle, after Khaleem was forced to be substituted because of injury. And we tried to stabilize the midfield and play on the counterattack. We also tried as best as possible to break the line because they sat very deep.
We had to dig deep today, it was a group effort, kudos to the guys (T&T). It was fantastic today and they kept their concentration to the end."
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