Head coach Otto Pfister has stated that T&T will be ready for its opening World Cup qualifier against Bermuda next Friday. Speaking with the media on Sunday following the Soca Warrior's 3-0 win over India at Hasely Crawford Stadium, Pfister said a selected group of players along with the foreign-based players will ensure T&T is ready for its assignment as it bids to go all the way to Brazil and the World Cup in 2014.
Pfister said a few training sessions with the overseas-based players and the local lads will put the team on track to take on the upcoming qualifiers. Pfister said the match against the Indians was used as a means of inspecting the local players. "Today I know who from the local boys I can use, and who I cannot use. Football is an easy game; I will collect all the overseas players and when we make two, three, four training (sessions) together, then we are ready for the World Cup game."
Sunday's India friendly was the German's first test of the T&T locally based players. Despite saying that the post World Cup qualifiers were missing sufficient preparation matches against stronger teams, the German coach described the outcome and performance as a "surprise," given the size of the population of India as compared to T&T. "I do not have the same choice of players like the Indian Football Federation. This was a little bit of a surprise for me," said Pfister. The former Togo head coach had praise for the players whom he described as tactically superior and more physical than the Indian opponents. He picked out record scoring striker Stern John who had been out of action for both club and country for over a year and also praised midfielder Hayden Tinto.
Playing in his first match for the "Warriors" for over a year, John described his fitness as 80 per cent with a little fine tuning needed. "I'm just happy to be back. Its been a long 12 months. I might need a couple more games under my belt for my fitness to get back up and (for) a bit of sharpness and everything is going to fall into place," said the number 14, John. John comfortably converted from a spot kick in the first half but said he could have been "a little sharper around the box" despite testing the Indian goalkeeper on a couple occasions. Darryl Roberts was the scorer of the other two goals.