Rijsbergen plans for the future

The 53-year-old, who served as assistant to fellow Dutchman Leo Beenhakker during TT’s debut participation at last month’s World Cup in Germany, pointed out this yesterday. “As soon as you’ve been in an event like the World Cup, it would be nice to get a follow-up (participation) and the first one is the Olympics.

“We would put a lot of work and try to get a good team to start the qualifications for the Beijing Olympics,” he said. “The screening has to be very good because a lot of these players could be players for the next World Cup team, with the players we have, in England, Scotland and the USA.

“It would be a good challenge to find some new talent and work with all the age groups,” added the ex-Dutch 1974 World Cup defender. “We have to start preparing a new team for the Gold Cup.”

Rijsbergen was speaking at the launch of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Under-16 tournament at Crowne Plaza, Port-of- Spain yesterday.

Rijsbergen’s assistant Anton Corneal and Ken Elie are expected to oversee the national team’s quest for honours at the August 14-26 tournament, which will be staged here in Trinidad and Tobago.

He referred to the rise of Argentina’s forward Lionel Messi from the 2005 FIFA Under-20 World Championships in the Netherlands (where he led his team to the title) to the Germany World Cup.

“Maybe we’ll find some Messis here in the Under-16 and four years from now, there could be some talents playing tournament right now and being a star in the next tournament in 2010. It’s very important to start now and develop players for the future,” he said.

“We have to try to qualify for every event possible because that would give us the exposure and the playing time to get better.

If that’s an international tournament, it’s better than playing here every time against the same teams,” he said.

“We have to try to qualify for the Gold Cup but the main goal would be to participate in the next World Cup.

“So it would be the process of trying to get the best players from the age groups and develop players ready to be the next Russell Latapy or Dwight Yorke,” Rijsbergen said.

“That’s the name of the game and it would be for a period of, let’s say, three and a half years because that when the qualification for South Africa ends.”

He also spoke about Latapy and Yorke’s involvement with the team.

“First of all, we have to sit because I understand that Dwight wants to play another year and Russell has to start thinking about his new coaching career.

“Hopefully, he would be a great help in developing young players because he’s finishing his career as a football player and he has to start to develop his career as a coach,” Rijsbergen said.

“He’ll be a great help because all the young players know him very well so that he can be a great help to develop the new players for the next World Cup.

“Hopefully, he can sit down and we can have some conversations and find the best way to help getting through to Africa,” he ended.