Trinidad and Tobago football coach Bertille St Clair is confident that Trinidad and Tobago will qualify for the 2006 World Cup Finals in Germany. He continues his exclusive interview today with Newsday correspondent Andre E Baptiste which was broadcast on i95.5FM Radio.
AB: Do you think that the standard of the Professional Football League is high or low?
BS: The standard is not what I expect from a professional. Up to this morning one of the guys was still saying, “Football is a job, and you have to make it.” And it is a business as well. And therefore we have to treat it that way and I do not think that it gets the kind of support it deserves.
AB: Does it mean as well that you have a difficulty on a national perspective to bring together the local players? The question in the past has been why we do not keep a locally based team? But then we took a primarily locally based team to Barbados and they did not perform as many had expected.
BS: A locally-based team would need some time. Because we would need to take them out of the system and maybe if we had that sort of funds, our own facility to stay and a place to train.
AB: So ideally what would you have preferred Mr St Clair?
BS:With a little bit more time? Maybe if you had a centre, a hotel around, because those guys need schooling too. You could take them inside, you must be able to monitor what happens to them.
AB: How is it now?
BS: Sometime you don’t even get them to train because when the club says that they have training you can not get them. Earlier in the year, that was what was happening all the time. When we had the break in the season, we were getting some of the players. Most of the players come from one club. So sometimes you only see six players show up for training for the national team if that one club can not free the others.
AB: But is there no action you can take against this? Talk to the Football Federation and see what happens?
BS: I think we are writing them letters and so on, but I mean, who is paying them their money? The clubs pay the money and if the clubs say to the guy that if you do not come to my training you do not get the money. Then what is going to happen?
AB: What about the pool of locally based players ?
BS: It has diminished, because I can remember when I was here the last time, the whole back-four was local. We played the finals of the Gold Cup with out Dwight Yorke and Stern John. We had more locally-based players, but then I was in the job for about a year, two years.
AB: When Trinidad and Tobago lost that match in the Gold Cup, did you expect yourself to be terminated?
BS: Not at all and I said it on a morning when they had some ceremony with distribution of prizes. Maybe this is a blessing is disguise, because I know if we had won that Gold Cup then our country would have been promoted to the highest level. And I knew that after that would be the World Cup coming up and we wanted to work hard towards that World Cup but it did not happen.
AB: So how did it happen?
BS: Well, I do not know, because I got a message that I am no longer required.
AB: Did you get that message in Los Angeles?
BS: Yes, in LA, and at that time, you know, I did not feel hurt, but I felt disappointed.
AB: Did you believe in your mind then that you would ever become the national coach again?
BS: Well, I never thought that. But as I said to you earlier, my objective is to take a national team to the World Cup. If the guys who came after me would have done, maybe I would not go through it again, but hey, since they did not do it, and I get the opportunity. Go full speed ahead! And you know, when there is a challenge I take it and that is why I am in this. It is not for the money, I just want it, and I know I will.
AB: Still confident?
BS: Very much so!
AB: Trinidad and Tobago have two important matches up next, against some would say the two “weaker” teams.
BS: Hmm. I would like to correct you there. You know, there are no weaker teams again in the competition. Like when I was coaching St Vincent it was my objective always to beat Trinidad and Tobago.
(To be continued tomorrow).