Soca Warriors must be like marathon runners

To digress a bit, Pamenos Ballantyne does a marathon, 26 miles and 385 yards ie about 105 x ? mile in 2 hrs 24 min, while the best time in the world this year was 2 hrs 6 min by Gebrasalassie. If Pamenos had run in that race he would have been beaten by 3 miles. Pamenos would be in Barataria and Gebrasalassie would have already reached White Hall. Mind you, the ‘world record’ is by Paul Tergat in 2 hrs 4 min 55 sec. The woman’s best time is by Paula Radcliffe at 2 hrs 17 min 42 sec.

What is frightening is that Tergat ran his final quarter in the marathon in 49 seconds. Zatopek had done 56 seconds in his marathon win almost 50 years ago.

All our Soca Warriors must reach that level of fitness or better in 7 months and must be able to match strides with Pamenos and beat him consistently while sprinting away from him. In other words, a Soca Warrior should be able to run a marathon and easily win, or do well in TT.

The ‘new’ strategy in modern scientific soccer is that the whole team must be galvanised and organised as a unit when in an offensive mode while possessing the ball. Whenever that ball is lost the whole team unit, because of their knowledge of the game and because of their total fitness, must be able to sprint back into specified defensive structures of "defence in depth" (Mr Sonny Brown, 1940-1950, Mr Alan Joseph 1952-1956 — CIC Soccer Coaches). This calls for extraordinary fitness levels, commitment, and dedication and also for psychological preparation, so that our players can play with confidence to win.

What CIC Coaches Brown and Joseph did was to stop practice matches at critical periods, allowing every player to remain stationary on the field. Then, a big model of a soccer field would be brought out, and using droughts knobs to represent players, to indicate to us where ‘defence in depth’ had broken down or was maintained. A defensive player must always position himself between the opposing player and his own goal. Whenever the opposite happens, the team’s defence becomes porous and goals are easily scored. This happened in the first match against Bahrain, where 2 players from Bahrain had no defensive TT players between them and the goal; luckily the Bahrain players ‘fluffed’ of that opportunity. ‘Defence in Depth’ is amplified with players who are fit and their fitness allows them to interchange where necessary. When a LIBRERO is used, one of 2 or 3 players must fall back and cover his defensive role when he makes an offensive foray. Our players must learn to concentrate on the field, and not daydream, in order to maintain defence mode.

The whole team attacking and the whole team defending, was the brainchild of a Dr Wily Meisl who organised the Hungarians of the mid-1950’s to the best team in the world. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the subsequent scattering of these gifted players all over the world: Puskas, Czibon, Grocis, Hideguti, etc ended this phase of the evolution of Modern Soccer. The unbeatable English team was trounced twice in a six week period by "Galloping Magyars" as the Hungarians were called, 6-1 and 7-3. The Brazilians lost 4-2 in The Battle of Berne in Switzerland.

We are going to Germany 2006, and the Soca Warriors must be as fit as a modern day marathon runner, as fast as Ato over short sprints, and as determined as Ian Morris over ? miles and better than Pamenos over long distances. We must be as tough as gru-gru boef seeds, at that level.

One final thing ... The ideological preparation that ‘our team is better than yours because we are fitter than yours’; that you, the opponents, are not Supermen, and that we have come out for war; not to expect an easy match from us — The Soca Warriors, ‘we have not come to make up numbers.’

LEON T PHILLIPS

Port-of-Spain