EVEN before the starting whistle for Tuesday’s World Cup qualifier was blown, the Women Soca Warriors had already lost the crucial game to Ecuador, former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner has said.
Warner said this country’s senior women’s footballers had been put “under pressure” by the “hype” and “other foolishness” generated before the game.
This was a repeat of the mistake made 25 years ago when their male counterparts were in the same position, he said.
Warner made the statements during a telephone interview with the Express yesterday.
A soft goal scored in injury time by Monica Quinterros gave Ecuador a 1-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday night at a sold-out Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of Spain.
The victory meant Ecuador clinched the final spot in the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup to be held in Canada at the expense of Trinidad and Tobago.
The manner of the loss was reminiscent of the situation experienced by the Strike Squad on November 19, 1989. “I thought that they would have learnt from the experiences of 1989, that you do not count your chickens before they hatch and they (citizens) began to celebrate again, they began to talk.
“I heard the guys on the radio talking as if we had qualified for Canada already, and all I was saying to myself when I heard them with their hype and their foolishness was, ‘Father, forgive them,’ because we were there before and the same thing like 1989, another goalkeeping blunder. What goes around comes around,” Warner said.
Warner slammed the team’s final preparation for the crucial game.
“While the coaching staff of the Ecuador team had a game plan, we had none. All we had was hype and at the end of the day hype does not win a match. If hype used to win a match, we would have been in the World Cup since 1989. What it takes is planning, tact and of course, at the end of the day, some experience,” he said.
“I blame the public, I blame the TTFA (Trinidad and Tobago Football Association) and the officials for trying to build up a hype to put the players under pressure. What they did was put the players under pressure and of course, last but not least, the Prime Minister should have never been there because the Prime Minister went to Brazil and Brazil lost, she of course came to Trinidad and Tobago and it was the same thing,” Warner said.
In July, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar visited Brazil for the World Cup semi-final when its men’s national team was beaten 7-1 by Germany. On Tuesday night, she attended the match at the stadium and was loudly booed as the announcer informed spectators of her presence and just before she met the players on the field.
Warner said the women’s national footballers were being distracted from their mission. Among the distractions was the presentation of a $1.5 million one-off payment to the players last week by Persad-Bissessar, Warner said.
The choice of the Hyatt Regency hotel as the players’ camp was also a distraction, he said.
“Giving the money before the game and, worse again, they put them in a camp at the Hyatt, oh Jesus Christ, at the Hyatt, the best hotel in town, the busiest. They could not have been serious,” Warner said.
“When I see people like the coaches of the past talking about what was happening, I said like they crazy. This team should have been kept in a hotel away from the crowd. This team should have been intimated, but nobody here wants to learn from experience and of course you know I am staying very far from them so I have nothing to say.
“For the whole tour in the US (the final round of World Cup qualifying held in the United States) they only got $500 (to spend), but now at the Hyatt at $500 a minute to get them ready for an important game, they had to be joking, they had to be joking. This team lost before they started and lost because of the hype, the Government, because of the technical staff and, last but not least, because of the Football Federation,” he said.