The task of re­plac­ing axed T&T So­ca War­riors coach An­gus Eve was of­fi­cial­ly start­ed by the Ke­iron Ed­wards-led T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TFA) on Thurs­day.

This was stat­ed via a press re­lease to the T&T, which stat­ed: The Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) is now ac­cept­ing ap­pli­ca­tions for the po­si­tion of Head Coach of the Se­nior Men’s Na­tion­al Team. Ap­pli­cants are asked to sub­mit their re­sume, con­tact in­for­ma­tion, and a copy of all re­lat­ed doc­u­ments by email to front­desk.ttfa@gmail.com no lat­er than 6:00 pm (AST) on Sep­tem­ber 28th, 2024, clear­ly in­di­cat­ing the po­si­tion they are ap­ply­ing for in the email sub­ject.

The re­lease added: Non­de­script ap­pli­ca­tions will not be ac­knowl­edged, and among the du­ties of the new coach will be re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for over­see­ing all as­pects of the team’s per­for­mance, in­clud­ing de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing train­ing pro­grams, man­ag­ing game strate­gies, and fos­ter­ing play­er de­vel­op­ment.

The head coach will work close­ly with as­sis­tant coach­es, med­ical staff, and team man­age­ment to en­sure the team’s suc­cess on and off the field.

His oth­er key re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­clude:

• ↓Can work co­he­sive­ly with oth­er pro­fes­sion­als – phys­io­ther­a­pist, psy­chol­o­gist etc.

• ↓Iden­ti­fy the in­di­vid­ual abil­i­ties of each play­er, and cre­ate suit­able IDP (In­di­vid­ual De­vel­op­ment Plans). Com­mu­ni­cates open­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly in a pos­i­tive team en­vi­ron­ment.

• ↓Must have an un­der­stand­ing of tac­ti­cal pe­ri­odiza­tion.

• ↓Have the abil­i­ty to be a role mod­el and men­tor ath­letes.

• ↓Abil­i­ty to analyse tac­ti­cal trends with­in elite foot­ball, e.g. (For­ma­tions and game prin­ci­ples).

• ↓To per­form such oth­er du­ties of a tech­ni­cal na­ture as may oc­ca­sion­al­ly be as­signed to him by the As­so­ci­a­tion.

The role and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the Na­tion­al Se­nior Team’s Head Coach are com­pre­hen­sive, in­volv­ing both tac­ti­cal and man­age­r­i­al du­ties aimed at achiev­ing suc­cess on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. Some of the oth­er re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­clude:

1. Tac­ti­cal and Tech­ni­cal Lead­er­ship

Game Strat­e­gy: De­vel­op­ing game plans and strate­gies tai­lored to up­com­ing op­po­nents. This in­cludes for­ma­tion, style of play, and spe­cif­ic tac­ti­cal ad­just­ments.

Train­ing Ses­sions: De­sign­ing and con­duct­ing train­ing pro­grams to im­prove the team’s per­for­mance, fit­ness, and tech­ni­cal skills.

Play­er Se­lec­tion: Iden­ti­fy­ing and se­lect­ing the best play­ers from the avail­able pool of tal­ent, con­sid­er­ing form, fit­ness, and suit­abil­i­ty to the team’s strat­e­gy.

2. Team Man­age­ment

Squad Ro­ta­tion and Se­lec­tion: Bal­anc­ing the squad by man­ag­ing in­juries, sus­pen­sions, and form, while en­sur­ing a com­pet­i­tive team for each match.

Mo­ti­va­tion and Men­tor­ship: Keep­ing play­ers mo­ti­vat­ed and fo­cused, both on and off the pitch, while man­ag­ing egos and per­son­al­i­ties with­in the squad.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion: Main­tain­ing clear lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with play­ers, staff, and man­age­ment, ex­plain­ing tac­ti­cal de­ci­sions and ex­pec­ta­tions.

3. Scout­ing and Tal­ent De­vel­op­ment

Play­er De­vel­op­ment: Mon­i­tor­ing do­mes­tic leagues, youth acad­e­mies, and in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions for po­ten­tial tal­ent to in­te­grate in­to the na­tion­al team.

Scout­ing Op­po­nents: Analysing op­po­nent teams’ strengths, weak­ness­es, and tac­tics to de­vise counter-strate­gies.

4. Ad­min­is­tra­tive Du­ties

Col­lab­o­ra­tion with the TTFA: Work­ing close­ly with the As­so­ci­a­tion to or­ga­nize friend­ly match­es, train­ing camps, and lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port.

Back on Ju­ly 31, 2024, the T&TFA sev­ered ties with Eve as the se­nior men’s na­tion­al foot­ball team head coach.

The re­lease back then from the T&TFA stat­ed: “Our fo­cus is firm­ly set on the 2026 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign. We recog­nise the im­por­tance of hav­ing a clear path­way for qual­i­fi­ca­tion, which re­quires the full sup­port of the gov­ern­ment, pri­vate sec­tor, and cit­i­zens,” the state­ment said.

The de­ci­sion to part ways with Eve came as a sur­prise to too many, as the T&T sits sec­ond in Group B be­hind Cos­ta Ri­ca in the Sec­ond Round of CON­CA­CAF World Cup 2026 qual­i­fi­ca­tion with four points af­ter a 2-2-2 home draw with Grena­da was fol­lowed by an em­phat­ic 7-1 blowout of the Ba­hamas, Eve’s last match at the helm.

T&T’s record ap­pear­ance mak­er at se­nior lev­el with 117 match­es Eve, 52, was first hired in 20221 and still had an­oth­er year on his con­tract when he was axed. He led the So­ca in 23 games with 11 wins, five draws, and sev­en de­feats, with 45 goals scored and 36 goals con­ced­ed af­ter tak­ing over from Eng­lish­man Ter­ry Fen­wick.

Fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of Eve, the T&TFA ap­point­ed his for­mer as­sis­tant and na­tion­al de­fend­er Derek King, 44, as in­ter­im coach for the first two match­es in this year’s CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League Group B match­es.

How­ev­er, King had en­dured a mis­er­able start to his stint, a 4-0 loss away to Hon­duras and a lack­lus­tre goal­less draw at home to French Guiana at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go.

With two match­es left to play against Cu­ba in Group B on Oc­to­ber 10 away from home and then four days lat­er at home to close our round-robin play in the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League, T&T sits bot­tom of the six-team stand­ings with one point, the same as French Guiana.

Ja­maica and Nicaragua are joint top with four points each, fol­lowed by Hon­duras with three and Cu­ba with two.

With less than a month be­fore the So­ca War­riors take to the field once more in the com­pe­ti­tion, any­body’s guess if King will still be at the helm for those two must-win match­es or a new coach will be ap­point­ed to fill the void.

The So­ca War­riors will al­so com­plete their four-match World Cup qual­i­fy­ing sched­ule in 2025 with a home en­counter against St. Kitts & Nevis on June 6, fol­lowed by an away out­ing to group favourites Cos­ta Ri­ca four days lat­er with the top two na­tions due to ad­vance to the next round of World Cup qual­i­fy­ing.