Uncertain St Clair wants win

EMBATTLED coach of the Trinidad and Tobago football team Bertille St Clair is setting his sights firmly on three points against Costa Rica in today’s CONCACAF World Cup Final Round qualifier at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo. St Clair looked noticeably rattled when questioned by reporters, including a number of Costa Rican journalists, following yesterday’s training session at the stadium.

Brushing off questions about whether he will change his starting line-up from Saturday’s 5-1 spanking by Guatemala, St Clair said: “The result you saw in the last match is not any indication of what happened on the field.” And he is definitely hopeful that home advantage will count this afternoon. “I think being at home, we’re definitely going out for a victory,” he said. Trinidad and Tobago lie on the bottom of the six team table without any points following their 2-1 defeat to the United States on February 9 and Saturday’s mauling in Guatemala City.

Noting that “we expect keen competition” from Costa Rica, who qualified for both the 1990 and 2002 World Cups, St Clair noted that his defenders will have to nullify the threat of veteran striker Paulo Wanchope. “I know they’ll come here (to) play well,” said St Clair. “I know about Wanchope and I think he’ll be a key man. We expect a good match.” The final 18-member squad will be decided this morning with striker Cornell Glen in the fold after recovering from an ankle injury sustained earlier this month.

The Costa Ricans held a training session at the stadium yesterday morning and coach Jorge Luis Pinto is expecting maximum points from his charges.“We have come out of a very important win where we played before no fans (2-1 against Panama on Saturday) and the three points was vital for us,” said Pinto. The coach was referring to the game in San Jose, where the hosts were forced to play in front of an empty venue after crowd violence erupted during their opening round fixture against Mexico. Pinto continued: “We know that Trinidad will be very hard to play against, because they want to prove that they can come back from that loss in Guatemala. “It’s not easy to lose so heavily and I expect them to be very tough,” he ended.

Teams —
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (from): Shaka Hislop, Clayton Ince (goalkeepers); Marlon Rojas, Nigel Henry, Dennis Lawrence, Brent Sancho, David Atiba Charles, Anton Pierre, Keyeno Thomas (defenders); Leslie Fitzpatrick, Angus Eve, David Nakhid, Carlos Edwards, Silvio Spann (midfielders); Dwight Yorke, Stern John, Nigel Pierre, Scott Sealy, Hector Sam, Kenwyne Jones, Cornell Glen.
COSTA RICA (from): Christian Badilla, Carlos Castro, Walter Centeno, Pablo Chinchilla, Leonardo Gonzalez, Carlos Hernandez, Andy Herron, Louis Marin, Gilberto Martinez, Alvaro Mesen, Roy Myrie, Jose Porras, Oscar Rojas, Geiner Segura, Douglas Sequeira, Alonso Solis, Michael Umana, Harold Wallace, Paulo Wanchope, Whayne Wilson.