“We need to be re­al­is­tic.” For­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er Bri­an Williams is urg­ing the pub­lic, as he was asked about a call for na­tion­al foot­ball coach Dwight Yorke to re­sign, amidst the World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign, which shift­ed from bright to gloomy with just a point in two match­es.

The call came from Ken­neth Butch­er, a for­mer Min­is­ter of Sports and ex-foot­baller, who be­lieves that with 12 points need­ed from four match­es to qual­i­fy for the 2026 FI­FA World Cup, the coun­try’s foot­ballers would not achieve this tar­get, as he de­scribed Yorke as ca­pa­ble when deal­ing with in­spi­ra­tion as a leader, but has been left want­i­ng in oth­er foot­ball ar­eas.

Ac­cord­ing to Butch­er in a ra­dio in­ter­view on Is­ports on i95.5 FM on Sat­ur­day, when it comes to tac­ti­cal in­tel­li­gence, based on his per­for­mances so far, in terms of se­lec­tion of play­ers, pres­sure of the play­ers, and play­ing in tran­si­tion, and all those things, he has been left want­i­ng af­ter 12 match­es un­der him to date. Yorke came to T&T high­ly rec­om­mend­ed in No­vem­ber, hav­ing played at the high­est lev­el as a strik­er in the Eng­lish Pre­mier League (EPL), al­though his coach­ing ca­reer had been lim­it­ed to a stint in the Aus­tralian Pre­mier League with Macarthur FC, which end­ed suc­cess­ful­ly.

Since tak­ing over at the helm of the T&T team, Yorke has at­tained a 21.43-win per­cent­age, which com­pris­es 14 match­es, three wins, four draws, sev­en loss­es, 19 goals scored, 25 goals con­ced­ed, and a goal dif­fer­ence of mi­nus six (-6).

Butch­er said af­ter as­sess­ing the for­mer Man­ches­ter Unit­ed strik­er as a coach of the coun­try’s se­nior team, based on the pil­lars re­quired for us to com­pete at that lev­el, Yorke re­ceived a pass­ing grade of 75 out of 100, but still, he be­lieves it was in­suf­fi­cient for him to stay on as coach of the coun­try, say­ing he should ten­der his res­ig­na­tion now.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Williams, who played with Yorke on the in­fa­mous ‘Strike Squad’ of 1989, which came with­in a point of qual­i­fy­ing for the 1990 World Cup in Italy, said that while there is still a chance for the coun­try to qual­i­fy for the World Cup, the is­sues are deep­er than they ap­pear on the sur­face.

“I think we have been do­ing these things, and these are nor­mal things over and over and over and over in Trinidad foot­ball. The pic­ture is a big­ger one. Un­til we ap­proach our World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tions in a more se­ri­ous way, in terms of prop­er plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion to have our team be prop­er­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the World Cup, then these things might be nec­es­sary. But those ap­proach­es are just com­ing from an im­ma­ture head­space, be­cause we have got to be re­al­is­tic, very re­al­is­tic as Trinida­di­ans, and even as ad­min­is­tra­tors of our foot­ball,” Williams said.

“We have seen our­selves in a not-so-com­fort­able sit­u­a­tion, even with our lo­cal league. Our lo­cal league is not even a prop­er­ly spon­sored league. They are not giv­ing our play­ers the en­thu­si­asm or the re­al in­ter­est to par­tic­i­pate on a mean­ing­ful lev­el. And this one thing is a big­ger pic­ture to look at. We con­tin­ue play­ing with peo­ple. If I put a coach and fire him and put a coach and fire him, they are not look­ing at the big­ger pic­ture.

“But we think we should just qual­i­fy for a week. Things don't hap­pen that way, so I am not re­al­ly in sup­port of no fir­ing, no coach. It's what we can do in build­ing. I know there is a great chance for us to qual­i­fy for the World Cup, this World Cup. But if we can­not do it, then we have to look be­yond and pre­pare prop­er­ly and look at the big­ger pic­ture, be­cause I can say, I'm fed up with the street coach­es and the street an­a­lysts and those who are just say­ing fire and fire be­cause they just see re­sults. And I know in the in­ter­na­tion­al world, the pro­fes­sion­al world, re­sults are im­por­tant, but from a na­tion­al per­spec­tive and a na­tion­al point of view, in prepar­ing a na­tion­al team.”

Quizzed if he was sat­is­fied with the per­for­mances of the team so far, Williams re­spond­ed, “Well, I would have to say not re­al­ly, be­cause some of these con­cerns were good. Some­times I can be a lit­tle crit­i­cal in that as­pect too, be­cause when I look at the first game against Cu­ra­cao, I thought we were too pas­sive. We were too laid back at our home game, when we were sup­posed to be a lit­tle more on the front foot, reach­ing out to Cu­ra­cao in the first half and show­ing a lit­tle more ur­gency.”

The T&T team will have two match­es next month and an­oth­er two in No­vem­ber to top the group for au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion. Oth­er­wise, they will have to be one of the best sec­ond-place teams to ad­vance to an in­ter-con­fed­er­a­tion play-off in March next year.