The Trinidad and Tobago back-up plan of using the top local professionals for the up-coming Digicel Caribbean Cup tournament could be fading as all players belonging to local club CL Financial San Juan Jabloteh have not been involved in the national training sessions this past week.
This may very well pose a bit of a dilemma for the technical staff headed by Dutch coach Wim Rijsbergen, as in recent times the bulk of the locally based players making the national team comes from Jabloteh.
None of the regular UK based players are available because the tournament is not recognized in the FIFA window.
Top local players all of San Juan Jabloteh such as Kerry Baptiste, Nigel Daniel, Anthony Wolfe and World Cup players Cyd Gray and Aurtis Whitley, who have filled the gaps left by the foreign based players before might not be available for the Digicel Caribbean Cup which kicks off on January 12, 2007 at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.
The San Juan Jabloteh contingent of twelve players who were all invited to national training ahead of the Digicel Cup pulled out of the pre-tournament sessions on instruction from the San Juan based club, and this will no doubt shorten Coach Wim Rijsbergen’s options when he gets down to select his team on Thursday.
Coach of the San Juan based team Terry Fenwick speaking with ‘ttproleague.com’ admitted it was the Club’s decision to pull the players and he believes they had a valid reason.
“First of all, my players need rest. They have Club commitments just as they have National duties.”
“I rank my players, the likes of Cyd Gray, Nigel Daniel, Kerry Baptiste and Aurtis Whitley just the same as Dwight Yorke, Stern John, Carlos Edwards and the rest of UK based players who weren’t released by their Clubs. If they don’t release the UK based players because of Club commitments then why should I release my players,” said the 2006 Lucozade Sport Big Six winning coach.
Fenwick added, “The Digicel Caribbean Cup is not FIFA regulated and we have huge commitments coming up in the Caribbean Club Championships semifinal later this month. It’s also a bit of a mess right now with the Club Championships because we still don’t know the schedule of matches and venues if we were to qualify for the next round. It’s hard and my players need some time off since we are scheduled to be back in camp from January 10th,” said Fenwick.
The Jabloteh players last trained with the national team made up of Local based and North American based players before the Christmas weekend.
Fenwick verified, “I spoke with national senior coach Wim Rijsbergen before he left for the Christmas week. After my chat with him he decided to release my players.”
The list of San Juan Jabloteh players who were invited by national coach Wim Rijsbergen are Durance Williams, Keyeno Thomas, Ian Gray, Marcelle Francois, Nigel Daniel, Glenton Wolfe, Kerry Baptiste, Aurtis Whitley, Trent Noel, Jason Marcano, Anthony Wolfe and Cyd Gray.
San Juan Jabloteh are listed to play Haitian Club Baltimore Sportif on the January 26, in their semifinal match of the Caribbean Club Championship at a local venue yet to be finalized, while the National team will kick off their Digicel Caribbean Cup campaign on January 12, against Barbados.