Trinidad and Tobago’s senior footballers are scheduled to have one final training session tonight (Tuesday) at 8pm at the Hasely Crawford Stadium
It will follow two intense sessions held on Monday which included one behind closed doors as head coach Leo Beenhakker went about in readying his troops for the all important match up with the Mexicans who are scheduled in the country at 9:30pm Monday and will be staying at the Hilton Hotel.
Beenhakker allowed midfielder Russell Latapy, the 37-year-old Falkirk player/coach to sit out the morning session and instead do some rehab with trainer Wayne Lawson in the Crowne Plaza swimming pool. But his teammates certainly continued to “Vibes it up” under the hot sun at the Stadium. Dwight Yorke and company trained for close to two hours before the media which included some Mexicans, before returning to the hotel.
Beenhakker insisted that T&T must play their own game if they are to come out winners in Wednesday’s affair.
“We have to more than ever, as we did in Panama, play our own game and then if we need to something else necessary if we know what is happening in Guatemala, then maybe we can do it. We have to be totally focused in our own match,” he told TTFF Media.
“I cannot do anything about the other game between Guatemala and Costa Rica. You can calculate every possibility about what can happen but we play at the same hour and we have to play our best game,” Beenhakker added.
The Dutchman further said that he was pleased with the way the “Warriors” were able to cope under pressure and adjust their game to suit under the circumstances away from home.
“For the first time we showed the character. I spoke several times with the players there saying that there was a difference in the attitude with us playing home and away. I tried to explain that if you want to be successful in international football you don’t have to have a different attitude with playing home and playing away. You have to play your own style and for the first time we did it in Panama. There may be some periods in the game when you are losing control of the match but not because there was not the right attitude but simply because the opponent may be playing good and Panama had some good moments as well on Saturday. But this game we showed a big difference in how we play outside of Trinidad and Tobago.”
Assistant coach Theo de Jong was in Mexico to view their 5-2 win over Guatemala while Dutchman Rob Baan was also scouting the 1-1 draw with Bahrain and Uzbekistan.
“Of course you have to do your home work. Everybody is thinking okay we are already in Germany and Wednesday’s game will be an easy one but that’s not the way it works in football. Every player who is on the field wants to win the game so probably they might change some players but also these player will want to demonstrate to the coach that they are good enough to play in the team. In that way it will not be an easy game and beside that Mexico are one of the top ten teams in the world. You have to be realistic and see that they are a stronger team. But there are no guarantees in football,” said the former Real Madrid coach.
The rest of the team remains in good spirits with no injuries to report. Yorke and Jones were carrying some sore legs after the win in Panama but were fully active in Monday’s sessions. Despite being out of Wednesday’s match with two yellow cards, Silvio Spann was also part of the training.