As the So­ca War­riors re­sumes its 2018 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing quest next Fri­day against St Vin­cent and the Grenadines in Kingstown, Russ­ian-based de­fend­er Shel­don Bateau be­lieves there is a key el­e­ment that can push the team through to the end of its qual­i­fy­ing course.

Bateau, the first T&T play­er to play pro­fes­sion­al­ly in Rus­sia, has been an in­te­gral part of the squad un­der Stephen Hart for the past year or more. His two goals in the group phase of the 2015 CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup set T&T on track to the quar­ter fi­nals stage.He missed the Co­pa Cen­te­nario qual­i­fi­er against Haiti in Jan­u­ary due to club re­stric­tions but ex­pects to see a re­vi­tal­ized T&T side lat­er this month.

"Miss­ing Haiti was heart wrench­ing, know­ing that I couldn't be there to fight with the boys and al­so the fact that I know if we had per­formed the way we could we would sure­ly be in the Co­pa right now. But that's in the past and I hope we can move on and con­tin­ue do­ing well on the road to Rus­sia," Bateau said yes­ter­day.

The for­mer T&T Un­der 20 cap­tain, who ap­peared in two FI­FA youth World Cups in 2007 and 2009, has a strong faith in his team­mates and staff head­ed by Hart, along with the back­ing of the Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, as the ef­forts for Rus­sia qual­i­fi­ca­tion re­sumes.

"I think the main strength of the team that cre­ates the tight bond we have is first­ly the mix­ture we have of youth and ex­pe­ri­ence. Our ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers can re­late to the younger play­ers so there's no gap in com­mu­ni­ca­tion which helps to keep a cer­tain lev­el of hum­ble­ness and ma­tu­ri­ty with­in the group.

Sec­ond­ly I think we're all on the same page when it comes to want­i­ng to change foot­ball in T&T and tak­ing the team and coun­try back to the lev­el we're sup­pose to be on," Bateau said. The ex-KV Meche­len play­er is ex­pect­ed to fea­ture in T&T's two World Cup qual­i­fiers on March 25 and 29.

The for­mer San Juan Jabloteh play­er wears num­ber 19 for Russ­ian club FC Krylia Sove­tov Sama­ra.

Dwari­ka backs War­riors to rise

"It feels good to know that you are not to­tal­ly for­got­ten."Those were the sen­ti­ments from for­mer stand­out T&T mid­field­er Arnold Dwari­ka af­ter he was ho­n­oured by the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League as one of its leg­ends a few weeks ago at the Na­pari­ma Col­lege au­di­to­ri­um in San Fer­nan­do.

Dwari­ka, now 43, was an ab­solute joy to watch in his prime, star­ring for Mal­ick Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive, Joe Pub­lic, East Fife in Scot­land and with North East Stars, Petrotrin and W Con­nec­tion lat­er down in his ca­reer. He al­so played pro­fes­sion­al­ly in Chi­na. He was named on the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup All Star team in 2000 when T&T reached the se­mi-fi­nal stage.

"It feels re­al­ly good to know that you can be re­mem­bered for do­ing some­thing good that you en­joyed in life," Dwari­ka said as he re­act­ed up­on re­ceiv­ing the ac­co­lade.

"Those were some of the best days of my life, be­ing able to run out and rep­re­sent Mal­ick and the fans"

Com­ment­ing on the na­tion­al team, he said, "I like what I'm see­ing. The coach is get­ting the team to en­joy play­ing and they are get­ting the re­sults.

The last loss (to Haiti) was dis­ap­point­ing but I felt the guys lost in­ter­est but I am ex­pect­ing them to come back hard­er than be­fore. I think this team has a lot of abil­i­ty and can go on to re­al­ly bring us back to where we should be and get the peo­ple lov­ing the team again like it used to be be­fore, in my time," Dwari­ka added.

Dwari­ka was named T&T play­er of the year in 1998, 1999 and 2001 and Caribbean Play­er of the Year in '99. He won the T&T Pro League Gold­en Boot with 45 goals that same year.

Guer­ra scores in Charleston win

Na­tion­al team duo Ataullah Guer­ra and Ne­veal Hack­shaw com­bined to help US club Charleston Bat­tery to a 2-0 vic­to­ry over South Car­oli­na Game­cocks in its penul­ti­mate pre­sea­son match on Wednes­day night.Guer­ra scored the game-win­ner by beat­ing the Game­cocks' off­side trap on a pass from Hack­shaw that left him one on one with the goal­keep­er at close range in the mid­dle of the area.

Both Guer­ra and Hack­shaw are ex­pect­ed to fea­ture in Charleston's fi­nal pre­sea­son match on Sat­ur­day with an ex­hi­bi­tion match against NASL Cham­pi­ons New York Cos­mos at MUSC Health Sta­di­um. The two play­ers are cur­rent­ly on tri­al at the club.

"It's been good so far and even bet­ter to get on the score­sheet in the win tonight," Guer­ra said. "As usu­al, I've just been work­ing hard and try­ing to fit in­to their sys­tem and show my worth at the same time. Both me and Hack­shaw have been putting in the work," added the Cen­tral FC and for­mer Cale­do­nia AIA play­er.

Lat­apy: Lim­it­ed chances for black man­agers in Eu­rope

For­mer T&T head coach and cap­tain Rus­sell Lat­apy has spo­ken open­ly on his opin­ion that there are lim­it­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for black man­agers or head coach­es in Eu­rope.

Speak­ing to the Scots­man news­pa­per ear­li­er this month, Lat­apy, who was as­sis­tant coach of In­ver­ness Cale­don­ian This­tle last sea­son, ex­pressed con­cern over the short­age of op­por­tu­ni­ties for blacks.

Fol­low­ing John Barnes' ill-fat­ed time at Celtic in 2000, the on­ly black or mixed-race man­ag­er to work in the top flight in Scot­land was Mar­cio Max­i­mo, who had a short time in charge of Liv­ingston in 2003-4. Lat­apy has been based in Scot­land for over a decade.

"Do I think there is still a block for black man­agers?" Lat­apy said. "Yes, I do. I know it can be dan­ger­ous to com­pare sit­u­a­tions but you see a lot of man­agers get­ting op­por­tu­ni­ties who have not proven them­selves and then you see a lot of black man­agers who have done a lot as play­ers and in coach­ing who do not get that op­por­tu­ni­ty. I think there is still, un­for­tu­nate­ly, the sit­u­a­tion that black man­agers are not get­ting a fair chance com­pared to young, white man­agers."

Lat­apy, how­ev­er, is wary of a "Rooney Rule"–as ap­plied in Amer­i­can foot­ball–where­by clubs are forced to in­ter­view a cer­tain num­ber of black and mi­nor­i­ty eth­nic can­di­dates. "I would have to think more about that [the Rooney Rule]," he added. "But what I would say is that I–and every oth­er black man­ag­er in foot­ball–want to get an op­por­tu­ni­ty based on mer­it, not based on a gov­ern­ing body say­ing that they have to do it."

Lat­apy has been linked to a job in the Caribbean this year but is yet to fi­nalise his next move.

Shaun Fuentes is the Di­rec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion. www.TTFoot­ball.Org

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