Trinidad and Tobago's senior footballers will be back out on the field from Tuesday following a short break for the Christmas this weekend. And from next week, national coach Bertille St Clair will hold two sessions daily starting at the Ato Boldon Stadium from Tuesday.
From early next month, technical consultant Graham Taylor will also be based here working alongside St Clair with the team while assistant coach David Nakhid will also rejoin the technical staff on a full time basis after returning to Lebanon recently. St Clair is optimistic that his "Soca Warriors" will adapt well to the intense preparations to come and will be adequately ready for the final round which begins against the United States on February 9.
Two warm-up internationals are scheduled against Azerbaijan on January 22 and 24 while the team will also train at the Antigua Recreation Ground from January 12-16 following the Digicel Cup third round clash against St Vincent and the Grenadines on January 9. There may also be another warm-up international prior to the US clash.
"When I first came back into this position among my first set of plans was to open up the national team to as many faces possible with the aim of trying to get the best group of players together," St Clair told TTFF Media on Friday. "And I think we have had a chance to look at quite a few new ones including Andre Boucaud, Marlon Rojas, Leslie Fitzpatrick, Kenwyne Jones, Scott Sealy, Stephen Cruickshank, Daryll Roberts and some others." Brazilian-born midfielder Jose Seabra has also joined the team in training, currently awaiting word on his application for T&T citizenship, English-born striker Ricky Shakes has also joined the team while fellow English-born player Bobby Zamora has expressed further interest in playing as well.
St Clair also pointed out that he was able to have some quality individuals added to the technical team with the addition of Taylor and Nakhid to work alongide assistant Ron La Forest and goalkeeper coach Michael Maurice who is now being assisted in that department by technical director and goalkeeping expert Lincoln Phillips. He also mentioned that trainers David Cumberbatch and Zeph Nicholas have been placing heavy emphasis on impoving the fitness of the players and this will continue going into the final round.
"We are also grateful to Alvin Corneal for the sort of assistance he has been providing in terms of his analysis on the opposing teams and of course we are appreciate deeply the support Jack Warner has provided in terms of making sure that things have been in place for the team.
"Following roughly a year, I can say that I'm in a way pleased with some of the progress because I am seeing that the players are finally beginning to understand the need to work hard on a regular basis without any hold backs. There is a lot of indiscipline in our society today and it is obvious that this would affect those in sports as well but we have started to work around that. I made it clear from the start that no matter how much ability a player has, if he is not prepared to work hard and be disciplined then he has no place on this team," St Clair added.
Meantime, the technical staff is aware that several US-College based players are currently back home for the Christmas break. "We are aware that they are here and we are interested in seeing some of them like Anthony Noreiga and Osei Telesford and a couple others," he said.