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TRINIDAD & Tobago football coach looking forward to the upcoming Digicel Caribbean Cup.

Wim gives new boys a chance

Monday, January 8 2007

TRINIDAD and Tobago football team coach Wim Rijsbergen says he is looking forward to the challenge of the upcoming Digicel Caribbean Cup.

And he welcomes another opportunity to see what the new players have to offer on the international stage.

Rijsbergen was speaking after yesterday?s morning training session at the Ato Boldon Stadium training pitch with the 20 players selected to begin the competition on Friday against Barbados at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo.

?We want to be on the positive side and think about winning the tournament and that?s good but we also have a lot of new guys who are getting a chance to show what level they are on,? Rijsbergen said.

?We will keep doing that for a while, looking at new players. It?s unfortunate that we will not be using the Jabloteh players but we needed to make a decision on that. We know those players so in a sense on the positive side it?s good that their absence gives us a chance to see some of the other players in the competition.?

The Soca Warriors face Barbados, Martinique and the winners of the Bermuda/Haiti play-off. From that opening group phase, the top four teams will contest a semi-final and automatically progress to the CONCACAF Gold Cup in June.

Winner of the Digicel Caribbean Cup collect US$120,000. But it?s not all about the first prize, Rijsbergen said.

?Looking at players and working on developing a team will be the story for more matches. This is exactly what other teams in other regions are doing when they are not playing World Cup qualifying matches.

?We have seen the whole league here and we have seen some of the US-based players. Now we are giving some players like Jemmot and Tinto and the other new ones a chance to show me and the rest of the staff what they can do on the field,? said Rijsbergen.

?One of the reasons we went to the United States was to look at players and now we can see what level they are on and then at the end we can say yes or no to if they can be on the level required for World Cup qualifying.