PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC — Head coach Stephen Hart believes Trinidad and Tobago has plenty of “soul searching” to do ahead of their upcoming Caribbean Cup qualifying campaign starting next month.
He was speaking after the Soca Warriors plunged to a heavy 4-0 defeat to United States in their final game of the CONCACAF fourth round of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers in Jacksonville, Florida on Tuesday night.
Hart slammed the performance as “disappointing”, pointing out the side had been let down by their senior players.
“We have the Caribbean Cup. I think I have to look very closely at the selection going into the Caribbean Cup and we have to realise that we have some soul searching to do,” Hart said.
“Tonight (Tuesday) some of the big players would have to answer for it because our leaders tonight, far too many of them disappeared.”
T&T entered the game unbeaten and having already qualified for the next round but the defeat saw them slip off the top of Group C and into second place.
Jozy Altidore scored twice in the space of three minutes in the second half while Sacha Kljestan and Paul Arriola added the other goals.
Hart bemoaned his side’s quality in the outing, noting they had been second best in virtually every department.
“I was very disappointed in the quality of our passing, our general lack of movement and we were second best to every ball tonight and it showed,” he lamented.
“Three of the goals we gave away the ball with sloppy passing and USA were breaking with energy and in numbers, and that’s the result you get when you make mistakes at this level.”
He added: “We were looking okay in the first-half but I would not say we were very good. We weren’t getting any shots on net and then we gave up an unfortunate sort of goal but again, we gave away that goal. We just made too many errors, way too many errors.”
T&T have been installed in Group 4 of the third round of the Caribbean Cup qualifiers which kick off on October 5, and will play alongside the Dominican Republic and Martinique.
