“We are disappointed with the results but I am proud of the group of players I had in this tournament,” said Trinidad and Tobago national coach Wim Rijsbergen after his team’s disappointing 2-1 loss to Haiti in the final of the Digicel Caribbean Cup on Tuesday at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.
The ‘Soca Warriors’ failed to capture their ninth overall Caribbean Cup title taking the second place US $70,000.00 prize money.
The ‘Soca Warriors’ lone goal in the final came midway into the second period with a brilliant free kick from Nigel Daniel, while Haiti enjoyed a goal on either side of the half to come out victorious and collected the first place cash prize of US $120,000.00 as the Caribbean Champs.
The Dutchman went on to say, “Haiti had their best team in the tournament and they are a very physical team,” and admitted, “We need to be much more aggressive.”
“We have tried hard to win this tournament and the supporters should be proud of us. It would have been nice for this group of players to win the tournament but unfortunately we did not and would have to wait until next time,” he said.
When asked about his decision to only make one substitution during the match after Trinidad and Tobago were trailing by two goals, the Dutchman responded, “We were putting a lot of pressure on the Haitians in their own half and we had Leslie Fitzpatrick and Kerry Baptiste supplying the crosses but we were unable to connect on those crosses. I decided not to introduce Hayden Tinto because of the style we were playing, he is more the counter attacking player and not the type of player, who can produce much without room,” added the national coach.
He believes that he has achieved a lot with the team from their first match against Barbados saying, “What we achieved is that everybody was negative when we played our first match against Barbados and we worked hard with the group over the last couple of weeks, then you saw the improvement,” said the Trinidad and Tobago coach.
He also believes he has done a great deal with the team within the short space of time he had the players in training while other teams have had their teams in camp for much longer periods.
Densill Theobald who wore the captain’s armband for the first time in his career, captained the team during this tournament and was also very pleased with the performance of the players saying, “We gave it our best but just wasn’t able to take the title. It was great that the inexperienced players got a chance to show what they are capable of at the international level. Guys like Makan Hislop, Osei Telesford and Darryl Roberts have a bright future with the national team. It was a great tournament overall and we went beyond expectations. I believe we have the personality and character to move on from this defeat with a positive attitude,” said the Caledonia AIA player.
Theobald also thanked coach Rijsbergen for allowing him to captain the team, “It was a great honor for me to captain my national team and I thank the coach for giving me the responsibility to share my experience with the younger guys,” added the World Cup player.
According to Coach Rijsbergen he would try to improve the team in the future even allowing other new guys a chance on the international level to try and get the best possible team. He also admits the team has a lot of weaknesses to work on.