T&T footballers have to keep possession of the ball and tighten up when they lose it. These were the two areas singled out by technical director of the T&T Football Federation Lincoln Tiger Phillip, after the countrys 1-2 defeat to the United States on Wednesday in the opening match of the six-team World Cup qualifying series at the Queens Park Oval.
Possession of the ball has been a major problem, said Phillips. But I must hasten to say that while it is still one of our biggest problems, we did show an overall improvement in that department.
I still say that we could have attempted to be more patient in keeping possession of the ball. We still need to be more mobile in the half-line.
When we lose possession of the ball, we need to step towards the ball rather than moving backward. If every player steps towards the balleast, west, north and souththe space will be reduced considerably, giving us more opportunities to win the ball back.
Phillips felt that the two deficiencies are not beyond us, especially having quality players like Dwight Yorke, Densil Theobald, Carlos Edwards and Kenwyne Jones coming into the line-up.
He claimed that when Theobald came on in the 74th minute, he showed a lot of mobility and a lot of leadership.
Not only was he showing for the ball but he was also directing.
It showed a lot of leadership on his part. He has improved by leaps and bounds.
The former national goalkeeper also expressed the feeling that the Professional League must take responsibility for the producing players like Theobald.
The Pro League has produced a Theobald, an Anton Pierre and an Atiba Charles.
The more competitive the league gets, we are more likely to see talent like that emerging, he said.
Phillips, who two months ago took over the job to develop the game in T&T, said the home teams overall performance against the US was very encouraging.
We did not give up. We took the game to them. And, inspite of our deficiencies, we were able to get just as many goalscoring opportunities as they did.
I feel good about that, because this team has the capacity to improve at least 30 to 40 per cent. I am happy because I think that it is not something beyond us. We are quite capable of taking care of that.
I also want to congratulate the crowd for coming out and giving us the type of energy that we need to go forward on this campaign.
Although our performance was measurably better as compared to that of our warm-up games, we must understand that we have not yet turned the corner towards our best performance.