National coach Angus Eve is generally disappointed in the performance of his team in an international friendly encounter with Guyana at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo on Monday night, despite a 2-1 triumph that came on the backs of veteran striker Kevon “Showtime” Woodley and Ezekiel Kesar, both of whom scored on debut for the country.
The teams will square off a second time tonight at the same venue and time, ahead of the start of the FIFA/Concacaf World Cup qualifiers next month.
The Soca Warriors will begin their campaign with a clash against Grenada on June 5 at the Mucurapo facility, while Guyana coach Jamal Shabazz and his men will face a more difficult contest against Panama at the Estadio Rommel Fernandez, Panama City, on June 6.
The game, one of two friendly matches against their regional rival being used to expose players to international competition, saw Eve opting to use veteran striker Woodley, a consistent name among the leading scorers (16 goals) in local football in his line-up, alongside a host of other newcomers.
The Soca Warriors digested early Guyanese possession before Kesar was fed a through ball into the Guyanese goal area and he struck it hard and low with aplomb past the advancing Jamine Cumberbatch in Guyana’s goal after 28 minutes.
Woodley, seemingly leg-weary with his runs up front, made up in his ability to hold up the ball and distribute accordingly. However, his time of glory came in the 39th minute, when Kesar threaded a ball inside for Woodley to gallop goalwards and calmly slotted the ball past Cumberbatch for a cushion win.
The Guyanese goal came from a horrible error in the T&T defence line that allowed Kelsy Benjamin to hit the ball past substitute goalkeeper Adrian Foncette for a 2-1 margin. Eve told the media after the game he expected more.
“I was disappointed to be fair, it was a game of two halves. I thought in the first half we really did what we wanted to do, what we practiced, and we probably should have scored a lot more goals in the first half. In the second half, I know when we make changes, and we did play some younger kids, but I was disappointed in the quality of the ball to be fair.”
In spite of the poor second half, Eve said his team was the better team on the day.
“Jamal (Shabazz) surprised me, traditionally he does not play that way, that sort of formation. But we adapted very quickly when we saw what he was doing and we shot his lines over, so I think we adjusted pretty.”
“Our ball retaining was really good in the first half, we moved the ball around, we changed sides, we penetrated, we created opportunities, we scored two good goals and we probably could have scored a couple more, and in the second half that just went to pieces.”
“And I know it was a lot of young kids that we put on but I expected bigger things from them because Josiah Wilson and young Lindell Sween have been playing at the national level for a while, and they have been playing at the senior level for a while so I expected a lot more from them.”
Eve described Woodley’s performance as fantastic and gave the assurance that they will continue to expose new players to enable all players a fair chance to seal a place on the national team for the World Cup qualifiers.
A different group of players will take the field tonight as the Warriors look to conclude the two-match series with another victory. “ It is about exposing players, we played two goalkeepers today and we’re going to play two more in the next game to give the guys an even chance, a fair chance. This is what we try to do, it’s two separate games so we take them differently.”
