National Senior Team head coach Leo Beenhakker has set about in ensuring that he has the best available set of players for this country’s upcoming back to back 2006 World Cup qualifying matches against Panama and Mexico.
Having made his first cut last week to an 18-man squad of the home-based pros for the next live-in training camp starting on Monday, Beenhakker has requested the presence of 23 overseas-based pros for training camps on May 16-18 and May 22-23 with the Dutch-born coach hoping to have all the players available for the latter mentioned dates. By then he hopes to have had a full look before selecting the final team for the matches against Panama on June 4 at the Hasely Crawford Stadium and Mexico on June 8 in Monterrey.
“We obviously want to have a chance to look and work with all the players before we get the final team together. The first couple of weeks should allow us a chance to assess what there is here in the home league and then we will go about in seeing what the other guys from the outside leagues have to offer,” Beenhakker explained to TTFF Media. “This is all in our effort to gather the best available players for the matches.”
Among the players selected include a few who were not in the team in recent times for some of the previous World Cup qualifying matches. They include Brent Rahim (Falkirk), Kelvin Jack (Dundee) who resumed training last week from injury, Ian Cox (Gillingham) and Avery John (New England Revolution). Glasgow Rangers defender Marvin Andrews has also been called up while Dundee United duo Collin Samuel and Jason Scotland have been invited too but are doubtful because of the Scottish Cup clash with Celtic on May 28.
The others include Shaka Hislop (Portsmouth), Clayton Ince (Crewe Alexandra), Dwight Yorke (Sydney FC), Hector Sam, Dennis Lawrence, Carlos Edwards (Wrexham), Derek Phillips (Shamrock Rovers), Leslie Fitzpatrick, Marlon Rojas (Real Salt Lake), Cornell Glen (Columbus Crew), Silvio Spann (Yokohama), Brent Sancho (Dundee FC), Stern John (Coventry City), David Nakhid (Al Mabarrah), Kenwyne Jones of Stoke City and new English-born midfielder Chris Birchall of Port Vale. There is also yet to be any confirmation on the availability of Russell Latapy who copped the Scottish First Division “Player of the Month” award for April.
Several of the players have expressed a keen interest in returning to the preparations under Beenhakker. Team captain Yorke, recently signed by Sydney FC has been in touch with the management according to assistant manager George Joseph and is making arrangements to ensure that he is present for the preparations.
Meantime, technical director Lincoln Phillips choose to comment on the omission of defender Anton Pierre from the squad for training next week, saying that the Defence Force player should not feel discarded.
“I think that this sort of decision by coach Beenhakker must be respected and Anton should not feel discouraged but rather use it as something to show himself up again by working harder and trying to come back stronger next time. The door has not been closed on him nor any other player but at this time the coach is making the decisions as he sees it in order to get the best playing Trinidad and Tobago team for the crucial games coming up,” Phillips said.