“We played into their hands!” Haynes disappointed despite win, explains Noel sub

Trinidad and Tobago head coach, Brian Haynes, expressed disappointment with his team’s first half performance last night after their 3-2 win over Saint Vincent and the Grenadines at the Hasely Crawford.

The young Soca Warriors trailed 2-0 after 28 minutes and needed a left-footed drive from substitute Michael Chaves in the dying seconds of the match to snatch three points.

Haynes, who took charge of the team on November 2023, chided his charges for going off-script after going down 1-0 to a third-minute penalty.

“Maybe we should not play in front of crowds,” said Haynes, at the post-game press conference. “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve been doing one thing for the last couple of weeks—putting the ball down and playing—and then all of a sudden tonight, we started playing these long balls.”

The former Trinidad and Tobago international player credited the Vincy Heat for their enterprise in earning the lead but felt his team was less than stellar in the early stages.

“Look, they got their goal, they got their opportunity, and it came from no unbelievable soccer,” he said. “It came from a breakthrough, a foul, and a P-K (penalty), and the other one that we were asleep on and they finished their chance. And I give them credit.

“What disappointed me was the fact that we played into their hands. We kept playing balls long when we could have put it down and played.”

Haynes also felt that his midfield pairing of Levi Jones and Abayomi George did not deal well with the low-block setup by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

“The two guys who normally played in there, it was difficult for them as they were dealing with a team that just sat back,” he said.

“I never hoodwink the players. I tried at half-time to talk to them about it and it didn’t happen and I had to make the changes to the players who understood what we wanted to do. That turned the game around.”

Arguably, captain Cody Cooper’s goal in the 36th minute started the turnaround. Eight minutes after Steven Pierre scored SVG’s second goal with a near post header from a corner, Cooper lashed home a rebound to make it 2-1.

Another huge inflection point in the match was the substitution of Lindell Sween, just before halftime.

Sween, who seemed to suffer an ankle injury during a warm-up match against QPCC last weekend, went down clutching his legs. Haynes said his playmaker was fully fit entering the match but suffered from swelling to his calf muscles during the first half.

“I didn’t hear anything from the physio that he wasn’t healthy and it looked like something,” he said.

Sween, according to Haynes, held both calves as he lay on the playing surface and, after the striker was examined by physiotherapist Natalie Thomas-Charles, he was advised to substitute him.

His replacement, Chaves, ended up deciding the match.

Haynes also heaped praise on his second substitute, Josiah Ochoa, who came on seven minutes into the resumption.

“He did exactly what we wanted him to do—he didn’t just come and speed everything up; he came and he changed the rhythm of the game,” he said. “When it was slow, he sped it up, when it was fast, he got control in there. And we needed that.

“And because they were sitting back, he found some good spots and he played in some great, great spaces, and when he took the ball forward, he was very effective.

“We have to give him some credit and I told the guys: ‘Listen, that’s why we have the kind of team that we have. If you slip up, this guy can pick it up. He did exactly that tonight’.”

Twelve minutes later, forward Larry Noel tenaciously held off a defender to toe-poke the ball into the net to tie up the scores.

Within minutes, the former San Juan North Secondary standout was substituted for Tyrell Moore as part of a triple-substitution move.

It was a change that fans greeted with eyebrows raised to Carlo Ancelotti-like heights.

George was also replaced, with Jeremiah Cateau coming on, while Derrell Garcia was substituted for Malachi Webb. Haynes explained his thinking behind the removal of Noel and the introduction of Cateau and Webb.

“Always, when things are going the way they were going, I always like to introduce a forward, not just a midfielder,” he said. “And the guy who scored the goal was who I took out. So, what the heck was I doing?

“What I wanted to do was just shake things up a little bit. What I wanted us to have was more fresh legs in their third. So that meant not just midfielders and wide players, but that meant a forward as well.

“But even though it did not work out for him (Moore) to get a goal, he had chances.”

Haynes said his changes eventually led to Chaves’ winner.

“It still freshened things up and they had to defend one more player in the box,” he said. “That caused Chaves to get the open shot and he did a good job—put it away.”

With Canada beating Dominica 8-0 in the opening Group D match, Trinidad and Tobago trail the Maple Leafs by seven goals on goal difference.

Haynes is well aware that the 3-2 result made his team’s qualification chances more difficult.

“We need to win and we need to win without giving up any goals,” he said. “We’ve given up enough goals now with these two. We need to go win this game that’s coming up. No disrespect to Dominica.

“People play for their countries. We’re going to respect that, we’re going to make sure that we will put the work in to come and get a result so that we can make Canada realize that they have a game coming up on Tuesday.”

Trinidad and Tobago will most likely go into Sunday’s match without talisman Sween. However, Haynes believes that his troops have the resources to cope without him.

“He’s not going to be a miss; we have guys that can play in different positions,” he said. “We are going to miss his technical ability. He is a special player—that, yes, we will miss.

“We think his health is more important than him pushing himself through when we have other guys who can bear the load until he gets back.”

The U-20 boss says his team will do all they possibly can to recover and put in another shift on Sunday.

“Personally, I feel like we owe Trinidad and Tobago for what we did [last night],” said Haynes. “I think it could have been much better. I don’t want perfection, but I want them to work as hard as they have to from start to finish.

“I think that they showed it at the end where they could be more consistent.”

And was the team’s celebration at the end of the match over the top?

“I know my players went a little bit crazy, running across the field and wanting to celebrate with them (the crowd),” he said. “But that doesn’t happen all the time with Trinidad and Tobago crowds like that. But it happened.

“I was happy from the standpoint that they are the ones who pushed us all the way down to the end.”

Trinidad and Tobago face Dominica on Sunday from 7pm at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, with Canada taking on St Vincent and the Grenadines from 4pm.

Concacaf U-20 Qualifiers

Pos	Club	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Canada	2	2	0	0	12	0	12	6
2	Trinidad and Tobago	2	2	0	0	8	2	6	6
3	St Vincent	2	0	0	2	2	7	-5	0
4	Dominica	2	0	0	2	0	13	-13	0

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