NATIONAL SENIOR men’s football team head coach Angus Eve is without a contract past the March 23 Nations League match against Canada next year.
And there have been no discussions to date to extend his contract with the Normalisation Committee (NC) whose term comes to a conclusion at the end of March, 2024.
Eve made the revelation during an interview with on the I95 sports radio programme over the weekend.
“They (NC) are a little bit finicky to do something about it (the contract) because, the football fraternity, I don’t know if they want me to sign a new contract,” Eve said, referring to the lukewarm response from the TTFA Zones. “I have not heard from any of them since I have been doing this job.”
Eve added no discussions have so far been held between the NC and him to extend his contract. “I was to have that conversation with them this (last) week but we have to leave to go to a seminar, so when I come back, we supposed to have that conversation.
“But they are a little bit hesitant to do anything because they are studying what the members will think. So the members have not really shown me any support. Except the president of the South Zone Dennis Latiff and Ross Russell (North Zone president) who is my friend, no other president has reached out to me or spoken to us.”
Eve suggested it would be prudent if he signed a contract before the Canada game. The former national player added that he and his staff had achieve their objectives and mandates set out by their employer, including qualifying for the Gold Cup; returning the national team to the A division of the Nations League, and qualifying as one of the last eight teams fighting to qualify for the last six for Copa America.
“We have never been in this place before. We have never reached out of the group stage and into the knockout stage and try to reach in the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the Nations League before. So I think we have achieved all of our targets, all of our objectives that have been placed in front of us.”
Eve claimed after the NC had stabilised the game locally, a lot of people felt left out of the process.
“Win, lose or draw,” he explained, “I could possibly not be the coach (after March). Through the whole tenure it has been like that. I think there is a distinct lack of support. A lot of the things you read on social media is like if people don’t want me in the job, so I tend to want to focus on the guys,” stated Eve.
He added that getting the national team to this point has been a rough challenge. “It has been a re-building process and it has gone pretty much better than we expected. Nobody expected us the way we got into the A, nobody felt that we belonged and we were under pressure from the first match.
He continued: “Also there was some other stuff happening behind the scenes with some of the older players and it probably took a little of the focus away from the honing in on the games. We were fighting against a lot of stuff and I think that the staff and the Normalisation Committee pulled together, the people who support us.
“We insulated ourselves and I think you saw the fruit of that re-building where we won three of the four games and that was fantastic,” Eve added.
As for the support of the public? “I think I know the culture of the people...Once you are winning, the crowd will come and support the team. It’s been building from the first game that we won to the last one that we played on the 20th of November, a day after the remembrance of that Strike Squad game 34 years ago. There was a lot of nostalgia in the air and a lot of people came out remembering that time, remembering that era.
“And I thought it was tremendous—from the young people I felt the energy from the bench, I felt the energy of the fans. And I know if I felt it the players definitely felt it. It is your country. Come and support them. It is your country...The fans were great in the last match.”
SOURCE: T&T Express