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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Theobald: TTPFL quality will improve results at Concacaf level

by

Walter Alibey
30 days ago
20250124
Defence Force coach Densill Theobald makes a point during a session

Defence Force coach Densill Theobald makes a point during a session

De­fence Force coach Den­sill Theobald is op­ti­mistic that the qual­i­ty be­ing dis­played in Tier 1 of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League will lead to im­proved re­sults at the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup lev­el start­ing from the end of this sea­son.

Theobald’s team lead the 12-team stand­ings with 18 points from six match­es, cour­tesy of a sol­id, at­trac­tive, and at­tack­ing style of play backed up with a tena­cious de­fen­sive that has cap­ti­vat­ed the hearts of many. How­ev­er, he be­lieves the ul­ti­mate aim is the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup and the World Cup Qual­i­fiers.

Quizzed on whether the coun­try can see the top lo­cal clubs mov­ing on in the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup, Theobald said, “Yes, most def­i­nite­ly; we have been knock­ing on the door.

“If you look at the last two sea­sons of the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup, we had AC Port of Spain, we had De­fence Force for the first edi­tion, and both of them failed to qual­i­fy out of the group stages.

“And then we went on to the sec­ond year, where we had Po­lice and AC Port-of-Spain, and both of them failed to come out of the group stage again.

“I think with the ex­pe­ri­ence gained to date, those top three clubs now could go a step fur­ther in terms of com­ing out of the group stage, tak­ing it one step at a time.”

Theobald said he is sat­is­fied with the brand of foot­ball his charges are play­ing at the mo­ment, but there is al­ways room to im­prove.

“My phi­los­o­phy and idea of foot­ball are al­ways at­tack­ing, front-foot foot­ball. Al­ways at­tack­ing and dom­i­nat­ing pos­ses­sion and just be­ing able to bring across the idea to the play­ers over the pre-sea­son pe­ri­od we had to­geth­er, and now be­ing able to see it be­ing ex­e­cut­ed at the match lev­el, it just augers well for what we can be­come and where we can go,” Theobald, who took over from Lloyd An­drews in a to­tal staff shake-up, told Guardian Me­dia Sports.

“Of course, we have a lot of work to be done, a lot of im­prove­ment to take place, but I am re­al­ly hap­py with where we are at present­ly, and not in terms of re­sults, but in terms of the play­ers’ un­der­stand­ing my phi­los­o­phy and idea and how we want to play in all forms of the game, which we have prac­ticed as­sid­u­ous­ly on the pitch,” Theobald added.

Since he en­tered in­to the TTPFL as a coach, Theobald has point­ed to the im­proved qual­i­ty of foot­ball be­ing ex­hib­it­ed by all teams, par­tic­u­lar­ly his team, AC Port of Spain, MIC Cen­tral FC Re­boot, and Cale­do­nia AIA, among oth­ers.

“The foot­ball that is be­ing dis­played is good, and you would want to take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the fields we play on are some­times not con­ducive for foot­ball, but yet still, you’re able to see good foot­ball. At the same time, you have good coach­es at clubs that are re­al­ly mak­ing eye-open­ing im­pacts.”

“You look at Mar­vin Gor­don at Jabloteh, do­ing a fan­tas­tic job with that bunch of play­ers; you look at Ja­son Spence with the work he is do­ing at Cen­tral FC, and you watch Walt Nor­ie­ga at AC Port of Spain, who con­tin­ues to be a threat, and the at­tack­ing foot­ball that his play­ers play tells you that the league is com­pet­i­tive,” Theobald not­ed fur­ther.

“You have An­gus Eve at Club San­do. They didn’t get the best start, but you know An­gus al­ways has some tricks up his sleeve, and you know he’s go­ing to bounce back and be a force to be reck­oned with. You al­so have po­lice al­ways knock­ing on the door. They’re in a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od, so they’re a bit in­con­sis­tent, but all of us as coach­es and the bunch of play­ers at our dis­pos­al, once we con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er and con­tin­ue to make the league as com­pet­i­tive as it is present­ly, it will au­gur well for the league and the foot­ball head­ing in­to a World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion year with a lot of foot­ball in­ter­na­tion­al­ly to be played.”


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