Coach: It’s the match of my life

Coach Leo Beenhakker and his technical staff along with home-based professionals Aurtis Whitley, Anthony Wolfe, Atiba Charles and Cyd Gray were sceduled to depart Piarco Inter-national Airport yesterday morning for Miami.

They will connect to Panama and are expected to be involved in a regular training session there this morning.

In Miami, the overseas-based pros are scheduled to make up the full team which will be met by a charter flight of fans on Saturday for the match at the Estadio Rommel Fernandez.

The aim is to come away with a win against Panama and in pursuit of that objective, Beenhakker said he’s taking it "step by step".

"We will see how things go (if TT get into the play-offs) but I’m going always step by step. The first step is to realise the chance to play these matches. Somewhere in the back of my head I am thinking what we can do and we prove this by sending someone to watch Uzbekistan/Bahrain. But I am also used to working (by thinking) that the most important match of my whole career is the next match and that’s the Panama one," Beenhakker said.

The Dutchman spoke about working to minimise the number of turnovers the Warriors make during the matches.

"If you want to value a team if they are playing good or bad you have to first of all to talk about the mistakes they make. This week I saw a lot of Champions League matches and you see Liverpool/Chelsea, two big teams. Why they are so good?

"Of course they have very good players but as a team they don’t make mistakes. When Liverpool use the ball, they always lose it up front and when you lose that, there’s nothing happening because you always have sufficient players behind the ball to organise your defence. It’s the same with Chelsea and that’s the secret.

"The secret is not if Avery (John) is playing on the left side or if Silvio is playing on the right or Tiba (Charles). If you analyse all the goals we get at the back, it always starts with a certain stupid way of losing a ball at the back.

"That’s why I am always saying that the main part of actual football, of modern international football, is it being a passing game more than ever. To the idea of preparing and training is to bring back the number of errors you make. When you can bring back the number of errors from 40 to 30 and then to 20 and ten then automatically you have a much better and stronger team," he explained.

TT Team for Panama—

Goalkeepers: Kelvin Jack (Dundee FC), Shaka Hislop (West Ham United), Clayton Ince (Coventry City)

Defenders: Atiba Charles (Vibe CT 105 W Connection), Marvin Andrews (Glasgow Rangers FC), Cyd Gray (CL Financial San Juan Jabloteh), Anton Pierre (Defence Force) Dennis Lawrence (Wrexham), Avery John (New England Revolution)

Midfielders: Russell Latapy (Falkirk), Anthony Wolfe (North East Stars), Densill Theobald (Caledonia AIA Fire), Chris Birchall (Port Vale), Silvio Spann (Yokohama FC), Carlos Edwards (Luton Town), Aurtis Whitley (CL Financial San Juan Jabloteh)

Forwards: Dwight Yorke (Sydney FC), Jason Scotland (St Johnstone), Stern John (Derby County), Scott Sealy (Kansas City Wizards) and Kenwyne Jones (Southampton FC)