It’s back to work for this country’s national senior team as they resume training at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on Monday from 5pm in preparation for next Saturday’s away 2010 World Cup Qualifying match against Costa Rica in San Jose.
Russell Latapy will conduct two sessions on local soil before the team departs for San Jose on Wednesday afternoon.
Latapy has also made a couple changes from his original 22-man squad. Fuham striker Bobby Zamora is no longer on the list and he has been replaced by National Under 20 striker Juma Clarence who was the scorer of T&T’s goal in its 2-1 loss to Italy in Cairo at the Under 20 World Cup.
And W Connection midfielder Clyde Leon replaces Wigan Athletic’s Jason Scotland who is unable to return for the encounter.
The five Under 20 player in the squad are Leston Paul, Glenroy Samuel, Jake Thomson, Robert Primus and Clarence.
W Connection’s Shahdon Winchester has also been invited to be part of the squad.
“So far all the other players are beginning to assemble. Carlos Edwards, Kenwyne Jones and Radanfah Abu Bakr are all here and Jlloyd Samuel comes in tomorrow (Monday),” team manager David Muhammad told TTFF Media.
“It appears that Bobby Zamora is injured once again and as such he is no longer on our list of invitees. We will have two sessions here before we head over to San Jose.”
Latapy meantime maintains that the “Soca Warriors” do not intend to lie down flat in its closing matches against Costa Rica and at home to Mexico on October 14.
“I expect every player to go in there and work hard every time they put on the jersey to demonstrate pride on the pitch,” he said in a fifa.com article.
"It's about national pride at this point. It's also about football. All of the lads in our dressing room are professionals, so we are inspired by two kinds of pride: national pride and professional pride, and they're both powerful."
“A powerful impulse, pride can be a massive motivator of men, footballers perhaps chief among them. Trinidad and Tobago's slim 1-0 loss against USA officially signaled the end of their charge for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™. However, with two matches still to go T&T remain a proud band and are eager to start the long road to Brazil 2014 with a final push,” the fifa.com article continued.
Latapy added: “So although we're out, we know that every single game we play we're going to try to win it, and that's what we will continue to do. I think we need to become more ruthless in finishing games off and we have to take our opportunities. We have to make our dominance into winning performances."