No home matches for Warriors

According to FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, the proposed March 29, 2006 encounter against an unknown opponent, at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo, will be scrapped because of a new match calendar issued by the sport’s governing body.

Speaking at CNC Channel 3 Early Morning Show yesterday, Warner admitted that, "the next time you’ll see the team will be either at a practice match or at the World Cup. But you wouldn’t see the team in Trinidad again."

Warner, who is also the Special Advisor to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF), continued, "It’s unfortunate I have to say this because I had several plans in place for this "mother of all matches."’

"After coming from Germany (where the World Cup draw took place) on Saturday, the plans have since changed based on a new set of regulations that FIFA has issued," Warner pointed out.

Warner emphasised that the national team will be no pushovers in the first round, having been placed in Group "B," which comprises England, Sweden and Paraguay.

"I’m saying that we have to be serious because we have to aspire at getting to the next round of the competition," he affirmed. "We have to aspire, as (Russell) Latapy and (Dwight) Yorke has said, of not going there just to make up numbers."

Focussing on TT’s participation in Germany, Warner noted, "We have to aspire to make other people believe that a small country, regardless of its size, can perform well on the big stage.

He added, "We must go there and show (that we’re) a small country that has a big passion."

As far as the players are concerned, Warner revealed that their lives will soon be transformed.

"First of all, in financial ways, based on the limits of my resources," he noted. "I’m not yet to make any applications to Government for funding because I want to see the whole, broad picture." And Warner expects the players to be role models for the future generation of the nation’s youth.

"The players must be used to give hope to the young ones who are in the ghettos, who are in various villages, and highways and byways of this country and who believe that all is lost," he said.

"Our players must be used to give those (people) hope and to show that, when all these things are over, it’ll not be an aberration, but we can do so again and again," Warner said.