"Grateful for the win but concerned about the poor approaches to the team's attack and defence" is how coaches Ron La Forest and Shawn Cooper summarised Thursday's 3-0 win for the T&T Soca Warriors over Guyana in their opening World Cup Qualifying match in the Dominican Republic.
The strength of the Guyana team did nothing to warrant coach Terry Fenwick to describe the performance as excellent, the duo believes.
The Guyanese last held the Soca Warriors to a 1-1 tie in the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the USA in 2019, but under Brazilian coach Marcio Maximo, the Guyanese have been in a period of development and transition.
The coaches, La Forest and Cooper, both former national coaches at different levels, have said the performance and strength of the Guyana team made it difficult, or near impossible to point out the flaws of the T&T team.
"There was no structure in the attack moving forward as a unit, neither was there any organised approach in defence. The team which comprises mostly of the country's overseas-based players attacked the Guyanese constantly but it was all due to individual play. We had a lower line of concentration, yet there was a large space between defender Aubrey David and his defence, but the Guyanese didn't have what it took to exploit it," Cooper explained to Guardian Media Sports on Saturday, a day before the team goes into action against Puerto Rico in its second game of the campaign in Puerto Rico later this evening at 5 pm.
La Forest said he is hoping that the win will help to improve the team's chances in the other games, however, he said the team could find itself in a difficult position against quality opposition if there is no organise approach to attack and defence in the campaign.
The win pushed the T&T team to the top of Group F, with St Kitts/Nevis earning a 1-0 win over Puerto Rico on Wednesday night, and the Bahamas was expected to open their account against St Kitts/Nevis on Saturday.
Only the winner of the group will advance to the second round of the qualifiers, where they will square-off with the winner of Group A, comprising El Salvador, Montserrat, Antigua/Barbuda, US Virgin Islands and Grenada.
Both coaches are expecting the T&T team to progress to the second round but believe more has to be done in attack as it will get progressively tougher going forward. Fenwick will have the entire team that represented the country against Guyana to select from for Sunday's match.