St Clair warns of rough waters

TRINIDAD and Tobago football coach Bertille St Clair has called for greater commitment and national pride from his players. This comes days after the Soca Warriors suffered their first defeat in the 2006 World Cup “Journey to Germany” campaign, beaten 3-1 by Mexico on Wednesday at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo. The no-nonsense Tobago-born coach has also predicted a more difficult road ahead if TT are to become only the second English speaking country to reach a World Cup finals, in the footsteps of Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz who played in France six years ago. St Clair said that he is not unduly dismayed by Wednesday’s result despite being unhappy with the level of commitment shown by some players.

“When I started this job I made it clear that I would take it ‘step by step’ and that is how I am proceeding. You look at our results over the past couple years and you see that we have been beaten several times by Caribbean teams so we are not going to wake up one morning and beat the best teams in the world,” he said. “Sure we have the talent but there is so much more to it and I was very pleased to hear Mr Warner say that a team needs support when it is preparing for success and not after,” St Clair said. “My approach is simple. I said that we would open the team and give players a chance because we have to see what is available. Because of this we were able to see players like Scott Sealy, Andre Boucaud and Errol  McFarlane coming through and there may be others,” he said.

“I am satisfied with the overall progress of the team but I am not satisfied with some of the things we did against Mexico. There were too many simple mistakes and when you make basic errors against a top side, they will punish you,” he said. “We conceded two soft goals early and it is always difficult to recover from that especially against a side that is ranked in the top ten in world football. However I was pleased that we were able to pull back a goal and we played some good football in the second half but we could not keep it up. We are definitely getting there but it will take time because we have a lot of work to do,” St Clair said. “A player may be very skillful but if he is not mentally tough, he will crack under pressure. It is not only in football and the West Indies cricket team is a good example of this.

Players come to the national team with values and attitudes that make it hard to build national pride and commitment,” he said. “On top of that you have a history of players walking out on the national team at the first sign of trouble so you have to choose very carefully because you don’t want players who will abandon the team when things get rough,” St Clair warned. “We really do not need any prima donnas who will only play for his country when it is convenient. These are the ones who will jump ship as soon as we hit rough waters and you better believe that there are rough waters ahead. But once the foundation is solid we can take the pressure and rise above it. So I am satisfied with the progress we are making and we will peak at the right time,” said St Clair.