Mighty Sparrow rooting for Soca Warriors despite loss

Sparrow was among Trini fans in the US who settled before their television sets to catch the noon match between the Warriors and former coloniser, England. He told Heartbeat News from his Queens home, “I was feeling real good for most of the match until the last fifteen or so minutes when my heart sank.”

The “Birdie” was of course referring to the scores by England in the 83rd and 91st minutes of the match that gave the Brits the victory. But says Sparrow, while it is “unfortunate,” he’s hopeful that the Warriors will be able to reign supreme in their match-up against Paraguay.

The singer, who’s known around the world, also revealed to HBN he might even consider writing a song about the Warriors. Meanwhile, other fans also cheered on the Warriors despite their defeat.

Dexter Johnson, aka DJ Madness, played football with both Brent Sancho and Stern John in college in the US. So watching the performance of both of the players alongside other Warriors was especially thrilling for the New Jersey-based radio deejay, despite the loss.

“It was a very exciting and surprising effort given the predictions by the rest of the world,” he told HBN by phone.

And Johnson, now on Blaze Radio, also like Sparrow is optimistic that the Warriors could still surprise many critics and move on to the second round.

But Johnson also ponders why head coach Leo Beenhakker could have made more substitutions. He also wants to see the Warriors play a combination of a defensive and an offensive game, since Johnson insists the Dwight Yorke-led team is not too caught up in the defensive football.

Technicalities aside, other Trinbagonians are just thrilled with the performance. “Personally, I’m pleased that the Soca Warriors presented an awesome fight!”, said Trinidadian-born Sherry Theus, aka DJ Topaz, also of the New Jersey-based Blaze Radio. “They were bested but showed the entire world that ‘together we aspire, together we achieve!’”

To Roger French, CEO of Port-of-Spain Music Works, the Soca Warriors have proven to be a great success by inspiring hundreds of millions of people spanning the planet to dare to live their dreams.

“This is evident in seeing a white American female proudly sporting a Trinidad soccer jersey on the number four train today,” he told HBN via email. “The Soca Warriors are the John Candy Disney movie, Cool Runnings, which told story of the Jamaican bobsled team beating the odds.” Renee Cummings, who runs the annual Trinidad and Tobago pageant annually, was also thrilled.

“I was highly impressed with the level of quality football played by Trinidad and Tobago, in Nuremberg today,” said Cummings. “Our players looked world class. Technically, they played much better against England than they did against Sweden. But I was a little disappointed that Russel Latapy didn’t take the field, but TT should feel proud because for about 80 minutes we gave England much more than they could handle.” And it was not just Trin–bagonians who were proud. Guyanese Ron Lamy, of PanOnTheWeb, eCaroh Caribbean Emporium and Sweetsocamusic.com, said he watched every minute and “(I) am proud of their performance.”

“An Englishman is quoted somewhere saying that England would have scored if the game were a cricket match. Well, the Soca Warriors demonstrated that they are a top tier team!” added Lamy. The Warriors held England scoreless until the 83rd minute when a Peter Crouch goal hit past TT goalie Shaka Hislop. The English men followed up in the 91st minute with a second goal to claim the win 2-0 over the Warriors at Numberg. Even the Warriors players did not beat up on themselves.

The crowd knew that it was a fantastic effort and we were more than happy to play our part in history,” said Skipper Yorke. “We are a small country but we did a good job. A surprise just wasn’t meant to be. We frustrated England in the first half and I think we did enough to get a draw. It’s just a shame we couldn’t hold on for 90 minutes.”

But there was still disappointment with Coach Beenhakker stating, “It was very hard to see the first goal go in. As the minutes tick by and the game goes on, your hopes build and you get more and more excited. Our heads dropped after that and I wasn’t surprised to see England score the second.” Trinidad will face Paraguay tomorrow.