Trinidad and Tobago’s senior men’s football team head coach Angus Eve said the door remains open for former skipper Kevin Molino and others who were benched following the team’s failed 2023 Gold Cup campaign, to return to the squad in the future.
Eve selected a new-look squad for the Nations League A campaign which followed T&T’s failed Gold Cup campaign. And following being omitted from the Nations League set-up, Molino announced his retirement from the international game.
Without calling any names, Eve, in an interview with TTFA head of media Shaun Fuentes, which was posted to the TTFA Youtube channel, said: “The door is always open to the guys.”
“I think some of them have served Trinidad tremendously through difficult times. I think sometimes people don’t know the struggles players go through and as a past player myself, I understand,” adding, “I never want somebody to go out of the game feeling that they are dissatisfied and we didn’t treat them right and didn’t give them a proper send-off.”
The T&T head coach also noted that age is not a factor for him once players continue to perform. He continued: “I have no right to retire any player. The door is open to those guys once they continue to perform. I think age is not a factor.”
In explaining the post Gold Cup shake-up, Eve said: “I just believe at that point in time we needed to clean up shop and we needed to get guys to buy back into the philosophy and what we were trying to do, and the project we were building.”
He also noted that he never dropped any of the players from the training squad and that if some players do come back into the team, they will have to conform to what the team needs from them.
“Some players took it on their own to come out and say they are retired but I would say the door is not closed for the guys and if they do get an opportunity, then they must conform to what the team wants to do. No one man is bigger than the team, not even me,” Eve noted.
Looking ahead to the Copa America play-off next year, Eve said: “Nobody thought we would have been here. We are now in the last eight in CONCACAF and fighting in the last four for a place in the Copa America.”
He added: “There is a lot more to be done in T&T football. Player development, exposure for players is also important and playing at the highest level consistently, then we will probably get more players to play outside of Trinidad like we used to back in the day.”
SOURCE: T&T Express