St Clair to monitor overseas ‘pros’

BERTILLE ST CLAIR, national football coach, has delivered a critical assessment of the team’s capabilities. “We have to improve in all areas,” St Clair said as he looks ahead to the upcoming 2006 World Cup qualifying final-round campaign. Before that, TT face St Vincent and the Grenadines on November 17 at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo which the visitors must win by three goals to progress. In the meantime, St Clair has already started to put plans in place for preparations in the final round of six teams scheduled to kick off on February 9. With training resuming on Friday from 9 am at the Larry Gomes Stadium, Malabar, St Clair is also making moves to bolster the technical area of the team specifically with regard to scouting opponents and monitoring players.

And pretty soon, a new assistant could be working hand-in-hand with St Clair. “I have asked a few of our coaches to come on board and assist us with the scouting. We have already made contact with a good friend of mine who is also one of the most respected and experienced coaches in England. He has operated at the highest international level and I will be meeting with him shortly to discuss several matters, including the monitoring of our players in Britain. We have a large group of professionals in England and Scotland and we need to keep checking on their form and fitness,” St Clair said. The Digicel Caribbean Cup preliminary stage will be played here from November 24-28 with Grenada, Puerto Rico and Suriname also taking part, and St Clair hopes to utilise the period to view some new faces.

“I have asked one of our top local coaches to do some scouting for us in North America and he has agreed. We are aiming for the best possible squad, come next year, and as I said, it’s going to be a whole new ball game,” he said. With former national coach, Yugoslavian Zoran Vranes coming with St Vincent, TT will be aiming for a fourth win in the semi-final stage. “We are going for a convincing victory against St Vincent,” St Clair added. “But we need to start looking at the final round and put things in place from now. I am looking to pull together a squad of about 25 players to get us through the final round of competition and take us to Germany in 2006,” he said. St Clair remains confident that the Soca Warriors can get to the World Cup finals. “I am sticking to my plan to proceed step by step and build a strong, unified team. It will take some time, but there is no shortcut to success,” he said.