The elimination of T&T’s Under-20 footballers from the Korea Republic 2017 Under-20 World Cup qualifying series has come as no surprise to ex-national coach Angus Eve.
But he believes the time has come for local coaches to do more assessments of their opponents if they want better results at international tournaments.
His comment comes mere days after T&T’s hopes were dashed following a 1-0 defeat to host Costa Rica. The junior Warriors appeared to have given up their opportunity of advancing early on in the competition when they drew 1-1 with Bermuda in their opening match last week, and found themselves in a must-win situation with the hosts at the Estadio Nacional in San Jose, which they lost despite a valiant effort.
Yesterday, Eve said T&T teams have been losing out on chances because coaches rarely conduct proper analyses of their opponents before matches.
“Local coaches don’t really do that, but strangely it (analysing teams) is the norm for coaches at that level of the game internationally. When we have to go up against top teams internationally, their coaches study our team and come up with effective ways of beating us,” Eve said.
He added, “Local coaches always tend to feel that they can match teams based on ability, but it is not the way international coaches operate. Let’s say a Jose Mourinho for instance, who does a detailed assessment of his opponents before he takes them on, so we have to do the same thing or else we will continue to get the same results.”
Eve, who has coached Club Sando in the T&T Pro League and Naparima College in the Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL), still congratulated Williams and his staff for their effort.
However, he said although the Under-20s seemed well prepared for the tournament, they did not look tactically cohesive and strong in offence and defence,.
He noted that young striker Nicholas Dillon appeared to have been doing everything up front for the team, which painted an unclear picture of what was being done tactically.
In addition to the the drawn match against the Bermudans and the loss to Costa Rica, T&T defeated El Salvador 2-1 in their last Group C encounter, but it was not enough as they finished at the bottom of the three-team qualifying table with four points.