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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

World Cup journey—believe

by

Andre E Baptiste
35 days ago
20250618

“Be care­ful what you wish for, lest it come true!”

On Thurs­day (June 12), the 2026 Con­ca­caf World Cup draw was made and many in T&T’s foot­balling con­tin­gent got the draw they de­sired. I should al­so add that many in Ja­maican foot­balling cir­cles were sim­i­lar­ly as ec­sta­t­ic by the prospects of play­ing T&T just as this coun­try pre­ferred the Der­by with Ja­maica rather than deal­ing with the likes of ei­ther Cos­ta Ri­ca or Pana­ma.

In fact, the all-Caribbean group of T&T, Ja­maica, Cu­ra­cao and Bermu­da would have pleased all four of the re­gion’s teams. So whether this say­ing is true or not about wish­es, on­ly one team will be able to de­ter­mine that come No­vem­ber when they au­to­mat­i­cal­ly qual­i­fy for the World Cup 2026, the oth­er will be seek­ing to be the best sec­ond-placed team of two over­all from the three groups to ad­vance to the play­offs rounds.

How­ev­er, I would rather the T&T team be more con­cerned with this im­por­tant say­ing: “How you start de­ter­mines how you fin­ish”, and there­fore a care­ful analy­sis of the up­com­ing match­es for T&T’s So­ca War­riors need prop­er di­ag­no­sis in the World Cup cam­paign that starts in Sep­tem­ber 2025.

There are three in­ter­na­tion­al match win­dows from Sep­tem­ber to No­vem­ber 2025, dur­ing which each win­dow, T&T will play two of its sched­uled six match­es.

Sep­tem­ber 1-9 (1st match win­dow)

Match Day 1: T&T vs Cu­raçao, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

Match Day 2: Ja­maica vs T&, Kingston, Ja­maica.

Oc­to­ber 6-14 (2nd match win­dow)

Match Day 3: Bermu­da vs T&T, Bermu­da.

Match Day 4: Cu­raçao vs T&T, Cu­raçao.

No­vem­ber 10-18 (3rd match win­dow)

Match Day 5: T&T vs Ja­maica, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

Match Day 6: T&T vs Bermu­da, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

And while we await the ac­tu­al date of T&T’s open­ing match in Sep­tem­ber, whether it be fourth or fifth (most prob­a­bly), we know it is Cu­ra­cao who should not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed, es­pe­cial­ly with lead­ing in­ter­na­tion­al coach Dutch­man Dik Ad­vo­cat, who will be able to call on play­ers from both the Dutch and Bel­gium league.

That notwith­stand­ing, T&T must on­ly think “win, win, win” on that date be­cause we need to start well so we can fin­ish on a high be­cause the draw has al­lowed T&T’s last two match­es to be at home to Ja­maica and Bermu­da. A good home win would set the tone for the sec­ond match in Sep­tem­ber away to Ja­maica.

We, there­fore, need the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um to be rock­ing even more than against St Kitts & Nevis and to stand be­hind our team and giv­en all that is in front of us, that has be­come crit­i­cal.

The re­al­i­ty is that as we all wit­nessed against St Kitts & Nevis for 45 min­utes and against Cos­ta Ri­ca for sus­tained pe­ri­ods, we have a very weak de­fence and less some of us have feigned short mem­o­ries, this has been a prob­lem for the last 10 years and more. It is al­most as if our play­ers walk on­to the field still in their night­wear and are sleep­walk­ing (a lack of fit­ness not an ex­cuse), it sad­ly ap­pears to be part of our men­tal­i­ty and coach Dwight Yorke, I am cer­tain will con­tin­ue to ad­dress, hop­ing and pray­ing for a so­lu­tion.

On Sun­day, T&T’s for­tune ran out as the USA se­cured a con­vinc­ing 5-0 suc­cess against a tame-look­ing War­riors team and but for some hero­ic saves from Mar­vin Phillip, the score­line would have been worse. It was yet an­oth­er demon­stra­tion of what is be­com­ing a far too sim­i­lar re­sult from poor de­fend­ing habits com­bined with ab­ject de­ci­sion-mak­ing, but it has been com­ing.

This per­haps more than ever em­pha­sis­es the ne­ces­si­ty for the grand­par­ents’ law of cit­i­zen­ship to be passed in par­lia­ment so that ef­forts can be made to ex­plore the op­tions of some younger de­fend­ers based on the cur­rent sit­u­a­tions, op­tions al­ways im­prove a team. The good news is that T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pres­i­dent Kieron Ed­wards has stat­ed that he is in con­stant con­ver­sa­tion with Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts on this mat­ter and he is con­fi­dent it is be­ing ad­dressed.

I do not know the new min­is­ter but I do know the for­mer T&T foot­ball cap­tain David Nakhid and I know his great knowl­edge, his de­ter­mi­na­tion and will and that should give all of us added con­fi­dence that to­geth­er through the work of both men, foot­ball is in se­cure and safe hands. I just hope every­one un­der­stands the im­por­tance of sports.

T&T’s mid­field al­so ap­peared pon­der­ous at times in the ab­sence of the hard-work­ing and skil­ful An­dre Ram­per­sad, a play­er many be­lieved should have been in the start­ing line­up giv­en the tenac­i­ty of our op­po­nents (USA) that af­ter­noon. But let us al­so be hon­est we have 1.4 mil­lion coach­es in T&T but the coach is Dwight Yorke and while we don’t have to al­ways agree with his de­ci­sions, T&T must al­ways stand by the team and him once the bell rings and the match­es start.

Foot­ball sup­port is crit­i­cal and that “12th Man”, yes I know, the “12th Man” is go­ing to be crit­i­cal both home and away. Ed­wards has stat­ed that there will be arrange­ments es­tab­lished for sup­port­ers to trav­el with the team for the away match­es against Ja­maica, Cu­raçao and Bermu­da and that has to be great news for all of T&T. I am cer­tain our team would ap­pre­ci­ate that very much and in Richard Piper, the TTFA have a man with a great track record in such arrange­ments.

So yes, while we are hurt from the USA de­feat, the test for this team at the Gold Cup will be to prove that they be­long on this in­ter­na­tion­al stage and if there is one trade­mark we have in this coun­try, it is “bad mind” and that needs to be in full dis­play to re­store con­fi­dence in an edgy T&T crowd.

I am cer­tain we all re­mem­ber No­vem­ber 15, 2005 and Yorke’s cor­ner against Bahrain which Den­nis “Tallest” Lawrence buried in the back of the net in the 49th minute to send all T&T cit­i­zens both at home and abroad in­to com­plete up­roar and cel­e­bra­tions, as nev­er wit­nessed be­fore.

Let us con­tin­ue to sup­port, and it does not mean we can­not crit­i­cise and ar­gue among our­selves but in the end, we should not lose faith but be­lieve and yes, ask ques­tions but en­sure we are there in voice, in num­bers, through mu­sic, through danc­ing, through wav­ing, through singing once the ref­er­ee blows that whis­tle.

The next few months promise to be a ride of joy that T&T right­ly de­serves but for which we will need to work ex­treme­ly hard both on and off the field. No one is go­ing to hand World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion to T&T. We have to earn it and we can on­ly do that as one na­tion.. one re­sound­ing voice.

Let us all BE­LIEVE!


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