Sports
Stephon Nicholas
TT Football Association (TTFA) technical director Anton Corneal has dismissed a call by former national player Kenneth Butcher for national men’s coach Dwight Yorke to tender his resignation.
In an interview with I95.5FM, Butcher noted the change in fortunes of the national team when Bertille St Clair was replaced as head coach by Dutchman Leo Beenhakker in the 2006 World Cup campaign.
TT were floundering with one point after three matches under St Clair in the hexagonal final round, before Beenhakker arrived in April 2005 and flipped the script with victories in four of their next seven matches to qualify for the inter-continental playoff against Bahrain. TT won that two-legged affair 2-1 to secure a historic appearance at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Under Yorke, who took charge of the national team in November 2024, TT have earned just one point from two matches in Group B of the 2026 World Cup qualifying final round.
TT opened with a disappointing 0-0 draw at home against Curacao and were beaten 2-0 by the Reggae Boyz in their second fixture. TT complete their Group B campaign with away fixtures against Bermuda (October 10) and Curacao (October 14), before playing home matches against Jamaica (November 13) and Bermuda (November 18).
Only the group winner advances automatically to the World Cup.
In an interview with Newsday on September 16, Corneal said Yorke is making strides and critics need to analyse the game better before making pronouncements.
“Switching a coach is not the answer,” he said.
“We have to support what is happening. We have to look into the game a little bit deeper. When we look into the game, we can see so many positives coming out of the game. There are so many positives coming out of the game.”
He said Yorke’s game plan in the defeat against Jamaica on September 9 was not flawed.
“Look at our game plan. Our game plan when executed gave us the opportunity to get good goals, scoring opportunities. At any given day, the score might have been 3-2. Then there would have been a different type of discussion.”
He said patience is required and TT were just extremely unlucky on the day. He said the team may not be too far off from beginning to make their own luck.
“I’m very optimistic. I think we will see a difference in the very near future. To make a change now, it’s something that I can’t see. It’s something that I cannot recommend and I would not recommend.”
He said TT attacker Levi Garcia being able to put the ball in the back of the net three times, albeit on two marginal offside calls, showed that TT were in the contest.
“We weren’t far away. I thought we were very unlucky in that last game there. How many times have you heard in the last 20 years a team scoring three goals and all of them were close offsides? Think back at so many games you have watched in the last 20 years and to think that we were so close yet so far.
“I think we were just unlucky and we are seeing growth coming out of that team and hopefully we are just on the verge of tilting luck in our favour.
“They are coming together nicely and I think we are playing into our strengths which is important. Each game, the team becomes one game stronger. I’m very optimistic going forward.”
