Yorke:

ENGLAND’S footballers may not have reason to be worried. But neither do Trinidad and Tobago’s.That’s the message sent back yesterday by a SkyTV crew filming footage in front of the Trinidad and Tobago team hotel in Rotenburg. It was also the message delivered by team captain Dwight Yorke.

“We have proved we are not just here for the ride,” said Yorke. “After the way we played against Sweden, England will know we can cause them problems. We have made people sit up and take notice of us.”

Just three days before the teams meet in a crucial match in Group ‘B’ at the World Cup Finals in Nuremberg, the countries — one who invented the game and the other playing on the world stage for the very first time — could not be in more contrast. The Soca Warriors, fresh from one of the bravest performances ever by a team on their World Cup debut, assembled yesterday after a 24-hour break and staged a closed door training session at the Sportplatz “In the Ahe” off the railway tracks in the northern German city.

“We did not even play to our maximum against Sweden, which means we can do even better against England,” Yorke said. “We saw the first half of their game against Paraguay and they were not that convincing.

We will go into the game full of belief that we can do exactly what we did against Sweden, and maybe even better. We could not be going into the match with more belief.”

The good news for team coach Leo Beenhakker is that all his players are fit and eligible for selection to play against the group leaders. Marvin “Dog” Andrews, the big central defender has recovered sufficiently from his troublesome knee injury and practised with his team-mates yesterday without any sign of discomfort. And first choice goalkeeper Kelvin Jack, pulled out at the last minute in the match against Sweden on Saturday in Dortmund after hurting his calf while warming up also was again between the uprights yesterday.

Beenhakker and his team comprising fellow Dutchman Wim Rijsbergen and Anton Corneal shut out the prying media for the late afternoon session as tension mounts for the important fixture.

On the other hand, the English-men, beset by injury problems, are not as buoyed for the encounter as they would wish. They need to win to ensure qualification for the second round — the last 16 knockout phase of the competition. Nothing less would be acceptable for such an elite team.

The manner in which they won their opening match against Paraguay was unimpressive, scraping past their South American opponents on an own goal in what turned out to be a boring and scrappy contest.

Manager Sven Goran-Eriksson has had to face the wrath of the English media and football pundits.

Beenhakker has no such headaches. He rides a crest of renewed respect and admiration with the Soca Warriors poised to capture the imagination of the football world again, should they put on another courageous performance.

“I’m not saying we are going to qualify for the knockout stage, but we have given ourselves the best possible chance with this result and we cannot wait for the England game to come around,” Yorke said. The team will have another training session open to the media from 9 am local time (3 am TT time) which will be followed by players making themselves available for interviews.

Among the media personnel in Rotenburg thirsting for exclusive interviews with skipper Dwight Yorke, Marvin Andrews and Dennis Lawrence are the Press Association and Radio Five Live, both of England.

Also at the training ground yesterday were a Televista television crew from Mexico and one from France along with numerous other reporters representing several other countries.

After today’s training session, Beenhakker and Yorke will stage a media conference in the Rotenburg Museum Building.

The team leaves on Wednesday morning by a special Lufthansa flight to Nuremburg in south east Germany for the match on Thursday. Already thousands of Soca Warriors fans are in that city and many more are expected to be travelling over the next two days to participate in a series of activities centred around the match. Ever the motivator, Beenhakker continues to remind his team that underdogs have a chance.

“You know from watching football in England how many times a team from a lower division beats a Premiership side in a cup competition,” Beenhakker said. “Even the big nations must keep their feet on the ground, because there are no small teams anymore.”