TTFF News - Rijsbergen applauds T&T players for gritty game

Rijsbergen applauds T&T players for gritty game

Issued by Shaun Fuentes, TTFF Media Officer, January 18, 2007

 

A good win and a spot in the CONCACAF Gold Cup may have been the end result for Trinidad and Tobago’s senior footballers on Wednesday evening but the achievement was far from anything close to the real ambitions of the head coach Wim Rijsbergen and his troops.

 

Just ask midfielder Kerwyn Jemmot and his response would be: “It’s good to win an get the man of the match award but this is early days yet. We have a tournament to win and a Gold Cup to go into and then there is a lot of football to play still.”

 

Rijsbergen could only be pleased that his players have a vision towards their upcoming footballing challenges and are not yet showing any signs of complacency after beating off the Haitians at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.

 

The head coach still, as always, feels his team have some rough spots to iron out as T&T embarks on the South Africa 2010 qualifying experience..

 

“Haiti is a very good team. They made some changes maybe to rest some of these guys but we tried to pay the game.In the first half and of course we had some good possibilities to score and take this game away.” Rijsbergen said in the post match session.

 

“We failed to score some goals but overall the guys worked hard to solve that. Physically a lot of guys were tired and that is not unusual with three games in a very short period. In the end they forced to a victory and we are a happy with a win and happy with the guys that there were no big injuries. For the rest its good to have a win and we go to the semi final and we have a couple of days that everyone can recover from the three games and will be fit to face the opponent in the semi finals.”

 

He explained the reasoning behind bringing on Dwayne Jack in the second half, adding “It had to do with the changes from them because they have some tall guys and if you see our team in general, we don’t have a lot of players with a lot of height in our team and of course Seon Power, if you see what happened with the goal, it is not every time …. very solid and we made a change to see what we could do with Makan Hislop in that position. We had to make some changes because some of the guys were very tired and it was the same with Baptiste.”

 

Rijsbergen responded to a question about T&T winning but still showing a lot of vulnerability at the back.

 

“I hear this every time in this country… if we win 5-1 then there is a still a lot of work to do. If we pick some guys then we pick the wrong guys so I don’t always listen to anyone anymore. We have a  strategy and we try to do  whatever we have to do. We  have all the experts sitting on the other side. We try to work with the boys and go one direction. In the  end, I explained already, we will try to find to the right mix to face the big opponents and to qualify.

 

“Sometimes you play a lot better than the other time but that is part of trying to get a team together. And sometimes as a coach you are lucky that they  do whatever  you want them to do. But overall the guys tried very hard and there’s nothing I can say about that and of course there will make some mistakes in the future, I am happy with the guys we picked and in the future we will see some different guys but everyone should be proud of these guys,” Rijsbergen continued. He will prepare a team comprising mostly the same current players for a friendly international away to Costa Rica on February 4.

 

He also touched on how the US-based players fitted into his program, adding that he was impressed by Darryl Roberts’ enthusiasm and determination up front.

 

“Some of these American guys are used to a system in the US but you can see some talent. Roberts is a talented boy but he needs work. But has some basic things for a forward… he has speed, he can jump and he’s not afraid to go in… If  you saw the goal… he forced the second goal. If you come with this determination in the game  if you then of course we will love to work with that.

 

“So far we won the first stage but we are aiming for the Cup, It’s a part of trying to develop some new players and it is important that you win games but on the way to 2010 will lose some games and that can be part of the development too.

 

Rijsbergen indicated that he gave Jemmot a full 90 solely to work on his match fitness.

 

“Because if you want t o get fit then you have to play 90 minutes. He was struggling a bit  in the end but  it was good that he has another 90 minutes under his belt.”

 

Glasgow meantime, when asked how he felt leading the T&T strike force, said he simply gave all heart.

 

“It’s easy really… Just play with my heart.. give them 120 percent and the rest will tell the story. It nice to score goals as scoring only helps as you move on  to the next stage. You can use that confidence to go on,” the leading T&T scorer added.