BRAZILIAN Marcos Tinoco, the head-coach of the Tanzania national football team, has taken over at local TT Pro League club United Petrotrin.
Tinoco has coached in the Caribbean before. In 2005, he was head- coach of the Cayman Islands national football team, after which he left for Tanzania in 2007, and was replaced by Jamaican Carl Brown. He has done extensive work with Tanzania's youth teams, winning international tournaments such as the Copa Coca-Cola, Muungano Cup and Rollingstone Cups. The highlight of his stay in Tanzania was winning the International Copa Coca Cola trophy after beating Chile 1-0 in a final match held in Brazil last year. The under-17 national teams of Argentina, Paraguay, Chile and Peru competed.
Yesterday, United Petrotrin chairman Arnold Corneal revealed that Tinoco was among a quartet consisting of three Brazilians and an Argentine, who were considered. Tinoco was recommended to Petrotrin, by Clovis de Oliveira, a Brazilian who was T&T head-coach for a short period in 2001.
"He will be with us (Petrotrin) initially for a year because he is still committed to the Tanzania programme,"Corneal said. "Tanzania has not qualified for the World Cup and so he was able to ask his Association for sabbatical for a year so that he could be here."
While, here Petrotrin have handed Tinoco the role of preparing their senior squad and also of facilitating a development programme. Without revealing how much it was costing Petrotrin, Corneal admitted that Tinoco here will not be cheap.
"To do anything like this is obviously is going to be costly," Corneal admitted." But we have expended no more money in making this approach.......our budget has remained the same as when we had local coaches. What we have done is make adjustments here and there. We have a Board and we have a budget, and bet your bottom dollar we are sticking to it."