Friday, July 17 2009

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RUSSELL LATAPY, Trinidad and Tobago football team coach....

TRINIDAD and Tobago football team coach Russell Latapy said he was comfortable with the way his team maintained their composure to secure a 3-2 victory over St Kitts/Nevis in Basseterre on Sunday.

This was even as the hosts threatened to make it a difficult encounter for the Soca Warriors.

Latapy made a second half appearance, wearing the No 7 shirt instead of the customary Number 10 and maintained his run was solely for fitness purposes and not because he felt TT were in danger of losing. TT, despite not killing off their opponents after going two goals ahead through Radanfah Abu Bakr and Atulla Guerra, were never left chasing and made sure of the win when Kerry Baptiste struck a 72nd minute winner.

“It was a good exercise for us. We needed to play in a competitive environment and I needed to see what level a few of my players were on at the international stage.

“I was quite happy with some of the areas of play we had in the game but obviously there are some areas we need to improve on and we will work on rectifying this in the near future,” Latapy said.

“The focus remains on August 12 and I will now assess what happened here and then we will continue to work ahead of the game against El Salvador. St Kitts did have a pretty decent run and I say congrats to them because it meant we didn’t have a stroll in the park today.

“We will now go back to the training ground and continue working hard and prepare ourselves to try and win on August 12,” the former FC Porto midfielder added.

The St Kitts media was curious to Latapy’s feelings on TT’s chances of qualifying for South Africa 2010. “Yes mathematically it is still possible but it’s a very difficult task for us at the minute.

In order for us to do that we will have to win at least four of our remaining five matches. We have a game coming up which we will have to get our heads down and try to win this game to give ourselves a fighting chance,” Latapy said. They also wanted Latapy’s advice for countries like St Kitts/Nevis, Antigua/Barbuda and the other small islands.

“It is very simple. Obviously I would say that all the attributes that we use to achieve success don’t always work for everyone. But there are a couple of them that is fundamental if you need to achieve success and they are hard word, dedication and you need to make sacrifices.

“If you start there then you are on the right road. I know in Caribbean football it’s very difficult at times to get funding and I know a lot of players because as a player myself, we fall into the trap where we blame a lot of the people for the lack of our development.

“But I would like to say to each player to forget everything that is happening behind closed doors or with the association and concentrate on their game and develop themselves. I think if that happens then everything else becomes easier,” Latapy told the St Kitts media. The Soca Warriors had another training session on Tuesday morning at the Larry Gomes Stadium, Malabar and will return to the practice pitch on July 22.