“We are in a good place,” says national coach Angus Eve.
With the team having two wins in as many matches, and success in the coming matches could not only see T&T qualifying for the quarterfinal of the Nations League ‘A’ division but also securing a place in the Copa America Tournament.
He was speaking at a press conference on Friday at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, Port-of-Spain as his team gets ready to face matches against Guatemala and Curacao for a second time.
The senior men’s football coach was not beating his chest, but he gave a breakdown of where the team started during the start of a new journey for them.
He told the media his team’s biggest challenge was the fact that the “Soca Warriors” literally had two weeks of preparation before the first game against Curacao at the Stadium which they won 1-0, courtesy of a Nathaniel James 82nd-minute item. And for the second match against El Salvador, they had just one day together before they travelled. That game ended 3-2 in favour of the Soca Warriors.
Eve said: “It’s of paramount importance to get a good start in this tournament. I think coming into it, nobody expected us to do well. Probably it was the way that we got into it, but we didn’t do anything wrong so we deserve to be here. I think the two starts were really tremendous for us.
“For me, coming away with the victory and doing the work that we did against an El Salvador team that has most of their players playing at home. They had a better chance to gel than us, but I thought it was two positive performances, there is a lot of work to be done. The games that we won, nobody, nobody in Trinidad expected us to win, but we went in there with a positive mindset and we did what we had to do.”
Eve’s new beginning in local football sees a blend of local players, courtesy of the T&T Premier Football League and overseas-based players coming together.
“We have refocused the team, it is a little bit younger now. We see younger guys coming in and the type of players making their debut. It was Denzil Smith’s debut, it was Nathaniel’s debut, and they showed that they can perform at this stage. They’re not the finished article as yet, they’re still a work in progress, and we’re in a rebuilding stage, but you can not be happy with the two results,” said the former national player.
Eve plans to take the next matches against Guatemala at home on October 13 and Curacao, away on October 17, on one step at a time.