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The Trinidad and Tobago National Senior Team will resume action next month when they travel to Guadeloupe and Martinique for friendly international action on 20 and 23 March respectively.
Both games fall within the FIFA international match window and represent the only chance for head coach Dennis Lawrence to use his full squad until September. Lawrence said he was delighted for the outings.
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“It’s another step in the direction that we want to go,” Lawrence told the TTFA Media. “We see these two games as very good competitive games for us… We will go there with a positive frame of mind and try and see if we can get two positive results.
“[…] We will assemble a squad to start training in due course and (we are) looking forward to the games.”
Guadeloupe and Martinique have traditionally been stubborn opposition for the Soca Warriors, particularly on their home turf, and the Martiniquans qualified for the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup at Trinidad and Tobago’s expense. However, both nations are officially French territories and therefore do not compete in the FIFA World Cup qualifying series.
Lawrence has won just one of his last 12 games as head coach but that triumph was a head turner. The Warriors edged the United States 2-1 in Couva in World Cup qualifying action last October, a result that eliminated USA and cost coach Bruce Arena and USSF president Sunil Gulati their jobs.
Trinidad and Tobago subsequently drew friendlies with Grenada and Guyana in Couva in November.
At present, the Warriors are ranked 80th in the world by FIFA—after climbing nine spots since November despite not playing a match.
(Courtesy Allan V Crane/CA-Images/Wired868)
As a result, Trinidad and Tobago are now four places higher up the ranking system than they were when Lawrence replaced Tom Saintfiet as coach. Lawrence’s outfit are the second-highest ranked Caribbean nation—27 places below Jamaica—and seventh in CONCACAF.
Mexico, who are 17th in the world, are CONCACAF’s highest-ranked nation, followed by the USA, who currently sit at number 25 in FIFA’s rankings.
Lawrence’s players have travelled extensively during the early transfer window with flanker Joevin Jones moving to the German Second Division while forward Shahdon Winchester and midfielder Jomal Williams swapped Mexico for Azerbaijan and winger Neil Benjamin Jr departed for Vietnam.
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I see that former France international defender and UEFA Champions League winner Jocelyn Angloma is the new Head Coach of Guadeloupe. They have already selected their players and scheduled training sessions since early February.
https://liguefoot-guadeloupe.fff.fr/simple/selection-seniors-decouvrez-les-joueurs-convoques-pour-le-1er-rassemblement/
Which is why those players in my mind are better trained in certain aspects of the game
There was a time when I would have queried about why we cant court tougher opposition from outside the region. But now…those two nations are actually very tough tests for our Warriors
Stupps
We have a losing record against Martinique and all of our games against Guadeloupe have been closely contested.
One thing I noticed about their players…They seem to be better coached in certain aspects of the game. Maybe the coaches in the youth level are former pro or semi pro players in France often times and it shows in their tactical approach and marking approach.
And that is what is lacking badly in our sweet country the tactical youth coaches Them really good yes
..Coaches in these islands are graduates of and are supervised by the FFF..
^^^good observation. It also helps to explain why so many French Antillean players end up in the top European leagues.
Surprisingly most don’t. Of the Gold Cup starting line up, the players playing their trade in Europe where mostly born in Europe. The ones born in Martinique mostly played locally. This is very surprising since they are all France citizens and that would facilitate moves to any country in EU.
These are some of the players I refer to: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs_1OKlja1_tMEBV5Dgy8eY84j9nhQRho
It shouldn’t be surprising Simone, that is true of football everywhere, less players from the relatively obscure locales end up as European professionals. True of even players right there in Europe, I’d imagine.
I remember Pascal Chimbonda as one who did. And there might have easily been more.
The only reason I realised was that he tripped Jason Scotland in the box and we got a penalty in a close win over Guadeloupe and I happened to chance across that excerpt years later while Chimbonda was at Tottenham and in the France World Cup or Euro team.
Cheyenne, I think they are decent games to be honest.
Yep not bad
Agreed