Leo Beenhakker will get an idea of the enormity of the problem facing him today when he holds his first training session with the Trinidad and Tobago national squad.
The Dutchman takes charge of his first session from 4 p.m. at the Hasely Crawford Stadium after being installed as new coach last Thursday, replacing Bertille St Clair, who was fired after his team's goalless draw with Costa Rica in Wednesday's World Cup qualifier.
Before he hits the field, 62-year-old Beenhakker will be officially introduced to Trinidad and Tobago at a media conference two hours earlier in the VIP Lounge at the Stadium.
The former Holland coach takes over Trinidad and Tobago's World Cup qualifying campaign with the "Warriors" bottom of the table on a single point after three rounds of the ten-match series.
His is a task which some feel is impossible, while others believe it is very difficult, but not impossible to reorganise the Warriors sufficiently to finish among the top four in the CONCACAF Zone and keep alive their hopes of reaching the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Beenhakker has shown ability to turn around a team's fortunes before, such as during his second stint at Ajax Amsterdam between 1990-1992.
Beenhakker returned to Ajax during what some called the dark ages in their history, when the club was on the verge of bankruptcy, was being investigated for transfer irregularities by the Fiscal Investigation Department (FIOD) and also had 12 of its employees investigated.
Under German trainer Kurt Linder, Ajax began the 1988-1989 season disastrously, losing four of their first seven league games against mediocre opposition.
The impending financial investigation put even more pressure on the club, leading to Linder's departure. Remarkably, stand-in coach Spitz Kohn was able to rally Ajax to second place in the league. However, with nothing won that year, a new Ajax board was installed to turn the club around.
The first act of chairman Michael Jaap van Praag was to re-appoint the former Ajax, Real Madrid and Holland coach, Beenhakker, whose task was to restore Ajax as one of the big clubs in Europe.
At first, Beenhakker lost three of Ajax's first six games. And it got even worse when Ajax were banned from European competition after an incident on September 28, 1989, when hooligans demolished the stadium fences and threw the debris onto the pitch in a UEFA Cup match against Austria's Memphis Vienna, whose goalkeeper Wohlfarth was hit in the neck by an iron bar.
When UEFA delivered its verdict in Geneva, Ajax were fined an unspecified amount, banned from UEFA tournaments for a season, which was devastating for a club already in financial despair.
Ironically, Beenhakker led the young team, including the de Boer brothers, Richard Witschge, Bryan Roy, Marciano Vink and Dennis Bergkamp, to Ajax's 23rd national title that year.
It would also have been Ajax's first Champions League appearance since 1985, were it not for the UEFA ban.
However, coach Beenhakker signed with Real Madrid after eight games of the 1990-1991 season.
Chairman Michael van Praag, in an emotional speech, said he felt betrayed by his hand-picked coach.
But Beenhakker's second stint at Real Madrid was far less successful than his first.
Beenhakker's coaching career began as early as 1965 with SV Epe in his homeland and has extended to such clubs as Feyenoord (Holland); Spain's Real Zaragoza and Real Madrid; Grasshoppers (Switzerland), where he coached T&T assistant national coach David Nakhid; the Saudi Arabia national team; and America and Guadalajara in Mexico.
Beenhakker, without a doubt, is the most accomplished coach to work in Trinidad and Tobago.
But can he turn the Warriors around?
And if he can't, will Beenhakker run the entire duration of the World Cup qualifying campaign or will he jump ship when the seas become too rough?
Players invited to national training:
Duarance Williams, Jan Michael Williams, Keyeno Thomas, Derek King, Anton Pierre, Atiba Charles, Leslie Fitzpatrick, Arnold Dwarika, Conrad Smith, Michael Celestine, Kerwyn Jemmot, Stephen Cruickshank. Lyndon Andrews, Kerry Baptiste, Angus Eve, Densill Theobald, Aurtis Whitley, Jerren Nixon, Odelle Armstrong, Nigel Pierre