T&T de­fend­er Radan­fah Abu Bakr stat­ed that the T&T So­ca War­riors are dis­ap­point­ed to be out of the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup af­ter the group stage but should hold their heads high.

The T&T se­nior men's foot­ball team with in­ter­im head coach An­gus Eve in charge drew goal­less with reign­ing cham­pi­on Mex­i­co in their Pool A open­er of the Gold Cup be­fore los­ing 2-0 to El Sal­vador fol­lowed by a 1-1 draw with Guatemala, to end with two points and third spot in their group thus fail­ing to ad­vance to the quar­ter­fi­nals.

This af­ter the na­tion­al team won their Pre­lim­i­nary Round qual­i­fiers, first against Montser­rat 6-1 fol­lowed by an 8-7 sud­den-death penal­ty-kicks tri­umph over French Guiana af­ter a 1-1 full-time draw to seal a spot in the group stages.

How­ev­er, be­fore their Gold Cup cam­paign, the T&T team was in tur­moil hav­ing just been boot­ed from the Con­ca­caf Qual­i­fiers for the 2022 FI­FA Qatar World Cup af­ter end­ing in the sec­ond spot to St Kitts and Nevis in a five-team round-robin pool from which on­ly the win­ner ad­vance to the Con­ca­caf Sec­ond Round of qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

Dur­ing the qual­i­fiers, T&T de­feat­ed Guyana 3-0 but then drew 1-1 with Puer­to Ri­co, 0-0 with min­nows Ba­hamas, be­fore blank­ing al­ready qual­i­fied St Kitts and Nevis 2-0 to end in the sec­ond spot with sev­en points, two be­hind the group win­ner.

Fol­low­ing the failed World Cup cam­paign, then coach, Eng­lish­man Ter­ry Fen­wick was axed and re­placed on an in­ter­im ba­sis by Eve, who was giv­en a con­tract un­til Au­gust 31 ahead of the Fi­fa-in­stalled Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee's ap­point­ment of a per­ma­nent re­place­ment for Fen­wick.

Based on the team's dis­plays dur­ing the Gold Cup, Eve should no doubt be among the can­di­dates for the va­cant po­si­tion and speak­ing on his re­turn home on Wednes­day night from the  Gold Cup where he played a key role in T&T's open­ing goal­less draw with Mex­i­co, 34-year-old Abu Bakr who is at­tached to PS Tira in In­done­sia said, "Ob­vi­ous­ly we are a lit­tle bit dis­ap­point­ed not to still be in the com­pe­ti­tion, but we could be pleased with what we have done out there.

"It's just about now build­ing and learn­ing from some of the er­rors and pick­ing up some mo­men­tum now."

Re­flect­ing on the team's in­volve­ment in the com­pe­ti­tion, Abu Bakr who has two goals in 38 se­nior team ap­pear­ances said he thought the high­light of the cam­paign has to be the per­for­mances of every­one.

"We used our full squad and every­body con­tributed and it's hard to pin­point any one per­son so it's just the su­per team ef­fort and the pride that we played with that was the high­light for me."

Look­ing for­ward, for­mer Queen's Roy­al Col­lege stal­wart Abu Bkar who has played lo­cal­ly for Joe Pub­lic and Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed said, "We have to get back play­ing foot­ball, es­pe­cial­ly the lo­cal guys. We have to stay fit and we have to build on the per­for­mances and all the ex­pe­ri­ences that we have had in the last few weeks and we have to be stronger.

"We played for our­selves, for each oth­er, for our team­mates, fam­i­lies of course, and the fans and every­body in T&T who suf­fered through this pan­dem­ic and suf­fered through a low point in our foot­ball. This is for them and of course, some of our in­jured broth­ers who sort of fell along the way in this jour­ney, so Khaleem (Hy­land) and Jones (Jo­evin) and all the boys who fought so hard with us, this is ded­i­cat­ed to them as well."

An­oth­er tire­less per­former for T&T dur­ing the com­pe­ti­tion was Cana­da-based strik­er and for­mer Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stu­dent, 27-year-old Ryan Telfer said the end of the cam­paign is a bit­ter­sweet mo­ment.

Telfer, who has five goals in 15 se­nior teams ap­pear­ances and fea­tured in all the team's match­es, added, "Know­ing where we were as T&T foot­ball a cou­ple of months ago, be­ing knocked out of the World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign and then be­ing able to turn things around quick­ly with a new coach­ing staff and maybe some new play­ers and just be­ing able to go through that pre-qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign to qual­i­fy for the Gold Cup, was huge for us.

"It was a big step for us and then ob­vi­ous­ly the re­sults against Mex­i­co is some­thing that the whole on T&T and maybe Mex­i­co was ul­ti­mate­ly sur­prised about but it was a proud mo­ment for all the guys here.

"Hav­ing that re­sults against El Sal­vador and los­ing that game that hurt us a lot be­cause of what we did in that game be­fore against Mex­i­co, and then hope­ful­ly try­ing to get some­thing out of the Guatemala game, which we ul­ti­mate­ly end­ed up ty­ing the game that we be­lieved that we should have won, but all-in-all it's a good note from where we were be­fore and a huge step in what's to come in T&T foot­ball."

Con­cern­ing the rest of the year, Telfer said based on what has hap­pened the team has to take it one step at a time.

He said, “Through all the tur­moils the fed­er­a­tion and the play­ers have been through, this is a huge step for us and we just have to take it one game at a time when it comes, and if it comes in the form of an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly or when Na­tions League starts back up. "