Leo says football door is not closed

The 63-year-old Beenhakker made this point during a press conference at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo yesterday.

Beenhakker and his fellow Dutch assistant Whim Rijsbergen were in Europe during the past month arranging the schedule of the team’s World Cup preparation in England (May 14-21), Austria (May 22-June 3) and Germany (June 4 until the end of the team’s World Cup campaign).

During that time, they watched a number of players, including Dutch-born Diego Biseswar and the English-born quartet of Ricky Shakes, Bobby Zamora, Jlloyd Samuel and Anthony Warner.

But Zamora and Samuel were deemed ineligible to represent Trinidad and Tobago as they represented England at the youth level and failed to utilise a one-year window to reverse their team status before reaching the age of 21.

There have been lots of conjecture locally about the technical staff’s desire to include players who were not part of the CONCACAF World Cup qualifications.

But Beenhakker affirmed that the players who featured in the qualifiers must be given credit for the roles they played during the campaign. "I also have to protect the team spirit (that) they showed us during the qualification matches," said the TT tactician.

"On one side, I want to protect the guys who did the job more than ever," he said in reference the the merit of including the likes of Shakes and Warner in the fold.

"On the other hand, we are still professionals and of course, when there are some new players who probably can make the team stronger and at the same time are prepared to step in the team and pick up the same spirit and the same ambiance we have, then they are also welcomed," he said. "So we have the door opened for players who were until now not involved in the team. At the same time, we would handle it very carefully,"Beenhakker said.

The coach noted that some of the players who are seeking spots on team will be given an opportunity to don the national colours for the February 28 international against Iceland in London, England.