Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation technical director Lincoln Phillips has pinpointed areas which he says needs immediate ironing out by the senior national team if it is to make steady progress in the 2006 qualifying tournament.
Phillips referred to T&T’s problem to possess the ball for long periods as the main downfall so far, judging from the recent 3-1 loss to Mexico and to an extent in the wins over St Vincent and the Grenadines and St Kitts/Nevis.
He was still confident though that the team will soon begin to play as a strong cohesive unit which is necessary if they are to stand a chance in the final round which gets going in February 2004. Before that, T&T will host St Kitts/Nevis in their next qualifier at the Manny Ramjohn Stadium, Marabella on Sunday October 13 before moving on to face Mexico on October 13 at the Estadio Cuahtemoc in Puebla.
“We are very fortunate in that we don’t have a lot of problems in the St Kitts and St Vincent matches but areas which needs immediate addressing showed up against Mexico. We’re not playing very well and this is mainly because we’re still looking at players and if you are doing that you are going to have problems because the cohesion will be lacking because you are always changing around.
According to Phillips, “One of the two main problems we have is ball possession and if we improve in this area then the team will improve by 60 percent. Everyone can see we have problems with that and it stems from the half line. We possessed the ball well in the first 15 and last 15 minutes of the game and they were not dominating. So the question is how can we improve our possession?” Phillips told TTFF Media on Thursday as coach Bertille St Clair conducted a session at the Larry Gomes Stadium. He pointed out that T&T, while being overshadowed in the first half, managed more possession by a 56 to 44 percent ratio in the second half against Mexico.
“The next thing is that we have to come up to ways and means up getting the ball back that is by tracking the opponent and keeping our shape. Every player must have a specific job to do. We must all push up at the same time and not leave any gaps. We are not compact but rather we are stretched out too much. We are very deficient in that area. We didn’t give South Korea time and space as we did against Mexico and the outcome of the match in Seoul was a good one for us,” he added.
Expected to play Mexico a possible two times in the final round, Phillips believes that it’s not impossible to defeat them in this campaign.
“I always believe that Mexico is a better team than us but that does not mean that we cannot beat them.
“We have to find ways and means of correcting our problems and there must be a collective effort to solving them. One coach running the entire show is very difficult because in a sense this is now a situation where you are up against the World.
“We need total support and for instance in the last game we were able to communicate with each other and he (St Clair) was made aware of the fact that we needed to possess the ball a little more and we saw this being done in the second half. We need to open up a little more and we need to change our tactical approach both in the game and in training drastically. If we don't do that then we are just fooling ourselves at all levels,” said Phillips.
“There’s always something you can pick up from collaborating and that’s something we have to instill in local football and definitely that is the direction we are heading into”.
He also commented on statements made by Stern John after the Mexico loss, saying that he felt the player made them out of frustration.
“Like everyone else he wants to see the team play better and being one of the main ones out on the pitch, he feels responsible for us losing even while he’s scoring the goals. He simply wants the team to do better,” Philips added.