National captain Dwight Yorke and his national teammates are fully aware that from May 7 they will be the properties of Head coach Leo Beenhakker and his management team but they can expect to experience some amount of leisure time based on the Dutchman’s schedule of events.
The full squad will assemble at the Crowne Plaza on the evening of May 7 and while apart from the friendly international against Peru on May 10 there will be several other activities including the road shows, it expected that from the moment the team arrives in Manchester on May 14 it will be a case of all football on and off the pitch. But Yorke and company will be happy to know that Beenhakker has catered for activities that will help relax their minds.
At the team base hotel Landhaus Wachtelhof in Rotenberg, there will be special provision of television stations for each players room with Sky Sports and other English news and movie channels being made available as well as the T&T newspapers being available a day after original publication at home.
Team manager Bruce Aanensen mentioned to TTFF Media that there will be card tables, table tennis boards and pool tables at the hotel as well as trail bikes for the players to use nearby the hotel away from the training times. Aanensen also revealed that the coach realizes the importance of the players having time with the families and they will be given free time to spend with their loved ones following the morning recovery sessions the day after each match. This time will run into the following day on which they shall report back for afternoon training sessions. Close family will also be allowed to attend the closed door sessions.
“We are trying to ensure that everything is in place for the comfort of the team,” Beenhakker said. “We will have cards and English television channeles and other activities for them to be involved in because we realize that this will be a group of people who will be living together for so many weeks and they must have everything in place for them. That’s the reason that we have our staff members working to ensure this happens. Of course we all know about the serious stuff of what we are going to Germany for regarding the actual football.”
Officials from Rotenberg also have other plans for the teams including a reception at the City Square which will be hosted by Mayor Detlef Eichinger on June 11 and all fans of the T&T team are invited to attend. Outside of Rotenberg in the match cities of Nuremberg, Dortmund and Kaiserslautern, a huge T&T cultural contingent will be partaking in shows on the days before and after matchdays with soca stars, masqueraders, limbo dancers and steelpan players all giving a total picture of this country’s culture, More on this will be revealed in due course but TT/Germany 2006 Litd cultural liaison officer Terry Joseph just back from a planning trip with Government representatives, said plans were being finalized and they were all well welcomed by officials from the three cities and many in Germany are also eager to travel to T&T and experience more of what ‘Soca Warriors’ land has to offer.
Meantime, before all of this, Beenhakker will have a group of home-based players plus three overseas based players coming up against the Grenada National Olympic team at the Larry Gomes Stadium on April 25 and Manny Ramjohn Stadium on April 27. Both matches kick off at 7pm. Since the naming of the 24-man World Cup squad, Beenhakker will have his first training session with the President’s Eleven team for the Grenada matches at the Larry Gomes Stadium from 10am on Monday. The President’s Eleven team includes World Cup squad players Aurtis Whitley, Cyd Gray, Anthony Rougier, Silvio Spann, Atiba Charles, Anthony Wolfe, Densill Theobald, Clayton Ince and Avery John. Also included for these two matches are Brent Rahim, Gary Glasgow, Trent Noel, Glenton Wolfe, Kerry Baptiste and Jan Michael Williams.