With 24-hours to go before an emergency meeting takes place on the future of national coach Colombia’s Francisco Maturana, the names of Bora Milutinovic, Terry Fenwick, Leo Beenhakker and local hero Russell Latapy are all being favoured as possible coaching replacements. The Soca Warriors have just two points from three matches in their attempt to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Milutinovic is no stranger to Concacaf teams as he led Mexico (Mexico 1986), USA (USA 1994) and Costa Rica (Italy 1990) all to World Cup Finals appearances while he has also coached Nigeria to the 1998 World Cup in France. Englishman Fenwick, the headcoach of local T&T Pro League champion team, Clico San Juan Jabloteh and Beenhakker, currently coaching Poland, a country campaigning in the European qualifiers for South Africa, are the other candidates.
Maturana’s position as national coach came under the microscope after an embarrassing 3-0 defeat by the USA in the third round Concacaf Final Round Qualifier in Nashville, Tennessee, last Wednesday which left the Soca Warriors at the bottom of the six-team group on two points, the same as El Salvador. USA tops the table with seven points followed by Costa Rica (6) Honduras (4) and Mexico (3) with seven matches still to be played by each team. Since taking over the job as head coach of T&T on January 25 last year in a 0-0 draw with Guadeloupe, a veteran of two World Cup Finals with his native Colombia, Maturana has failed to command the confidence of the T&T public mostly because of some bizzare team selections.
In his time in charge, the Colombian, a dentist by profession, has won 16 of 31 matches, mostly against Caribbean opponents. Under his charge, T&T has suffered six defeats including a World Cup qualifier at home to Bermuda while drawing nine matches. Fenwick, who represented England at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City, said, “To be honest I just don’t see it happening at this moment. The current position that the Soca Warriors find themselves in has to be the all round responsibility of the entire technical staff.”
Fenwick has coached in England with a three year stint at Portsmouth (Division One) being his longest while he has also coached at Crystal Palace (Division One) and Northampton (Division Two). The Englishman added, “We have to remember that Maturana is a foreigner in this country and he had to rely on the information of other members of his staff so he is not to be at fault or blame alone.” “Quite frankly, I feel that he will be in charge of the team after Thursday’s meeting.
“But you never know what you are going to get from Mr Warner. He has the habit of pulling rabbits out of the hat. Just look at the last campaign when he got Beenhakker,” ended Fenwick David John-Williams, manager/owner of W Connection echoed Fenwick’s views and added, “It takes a miracle to guess who Warner has in mind for the job if he does decide to make a coaching change.”
“The names that come to my mind are Latapy, Milutinovic, Jurgen Klinsman and Beenhakker. “Latapy already knows the players and he will surely have the ears of the players. “I don’t know much of his previous coaching record outside of T&T but he has been a tremendous player for T&T and hopefully he can do the job as a coach. “But at the same time, good players don’t always transform into good coaches,” concluded John-Williams.