Midfielder David Nakhid expressed disappointment on the late decision to suspend him from lining up for this country in their final Digicel Caribbean Cup encounter against hosts Barbados last evening (Thursday).
The Trinidad and Tobago team received a letter from the Caribbean Football Union stating that Nakhid was suspended for unsporting behaviour in the 45th minute and for abusive language towards the Guyanese referee Stanley Lancaster after the 90 minutes in T&T's 2-1 loss to Cuba on Tuesday.
Already missing four injured players, Nakhid's absence was another setback for coach Bertille St Clair's team which went into the match against the Barbados needing at least a draw to seal the third place in the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the US$30,000 third place prize.
"It is unfortunate especially the way in which it has been done," Nakhid told TTFF Media on Thursday.
"I saw no reason to be suspended from the game . This not only hampers the team for the final game but it also puts a bad image on myself as a player because I have never used abusive language against an official or been sent off for any sort of unsporting behaviour," the former captain added.
"I hope their can be some looking into this as to why it occurred at this time of the tournament. Having said that, we need to go on and beat the Barbados team and show them that we are the ones going onto the Gold Cup and not them. And then later on we'll look back at them as a team also in the World Cup," he said.
The T&T camp at the Grand Barbados Beach Resort has not been in the highest of spirits, knowing that they are on the back of two disappointing results and they are very well aware of the severe criticism the team is coming in for at home. Nakhid believes though that the team will shake off these setbacks.
"Personally I would have liked to play all three matches but thank God I thought I did fairly well in the first game and then I was able to contribute by setting up our goal in the second match. This tournament has provided us with the ideal opportunity to look at some of the players and see who could fit into the World Cup team. Unfortunately some did not and some they and it gave us a good indication as to how we need to fit things into perspective for the upcoming matches. In the end of this all, the bigger picture remains the World Cup."
Aware of all the stinging attacks the "Warriors" are under, St Clair preferred not to let the pressure get to the team.
"We have a task to focus on and we remain committed to working on getting there. Things didn't go in our favour in the two matches here and questions will no doubt be asked as to why the team didn't win the two games. But we will stick to the task without letting things get out of our reach," St Clair said.
"Some folks will not like it and will think we should have won every game but this was another lesson for us and hopefully we could learn quickly from it. I know the powers that be and other people will feel let down by the two results but once those involved can see where we went wrong and move on then things should happen for the better. People will definitely have things to say but this is not the World Cup.Another thing is that all these teams want to beat up Trinidad so definitely come hard at us but this is all up for making us a stronger team."