Rijsbergen pleased with youngsters

This as the Soca Warriors looks ahead to the upcoming CONCACAF Gold Cup and 2010 World Cup tournaments.

The Dutchman was speaking after Trinidad and Tobago were beaten 2-0 by Japan in a friendly international yesterday in Tokyo.

Rijsbergen, in his first match at the helm since taking over from Leo Beenhakker late last month fielded a team missing half of his regular players who featured in the 2006 World Cup in Germany. However the youngsters held their own for the entire second half despite having conceded two early goals.

And Rijsbergen has already signaled his intention to continue working with the home-based professionals.

However he admitted that there was much work to be done to bring the present team up to competitive standard at the world level but felt there were some positive signs.

“You saw that they played a better second-half than the first and obviously that is something positive that we can build on. We came here with several players from the Pro League and we knew it would be difficult because the Japanese League is older and is played at a higher level than the TT competition.

“But we have some good players and we will now try to work with them,” Rijsbergen said yesterday.

“If we continue to play against these kind of teams it will be a big help for us and that’s the reality of the game,” Rijsbergen said.

The team, minus Evans Wise who is returning to Germany and Avery John heading back to the US, will arrive home in two groups today and tomorrow.

They will now look ahead to the next international friendly against Mexico in Port-of-Spain on September 2 which falls on a FIFA date and will mean that some of the World Cup players will be available for selection.

The focus switches next week to the TT Under-16s who will contest the CFU Under-16 Youth Cup which is the first leg of qualification for Korea FIFA Under-17 World Championship 2007.