Source: www.trinidadexpress.com
Angus Eve is in the process of finalising his squad to contest the Caribbean Football Union Olympic Qualifiers next month in Dominica.
Eve, a former national team captain, took over the responsibility of head coach from Zoran Vranes after serving as an assistant coach alongside Clint Marcelle for the past few months.
Now charged with the responsibility of getting the T&T Under-23s ready for the qualifiers, Eve said he's welcoming the challenge at every session. The team has been training three days per week at the Hasely Crawford Stadium training pitch.
T&T face Dominica, Netherlands Antilles and Grenada from July 20-24 with the Group B winners going forward to the CONCACAF Finals in United States next year, with qualification for the 2012 Olympics the ultimate goal.
Marcelle and Derek King are his assistant coaches, with Norris Ferguson holding the manager's post.
"More or less we have an idea of what the squad will look like for the competition but we have a couple spaces still opened. I want the guys to push themselves to the limit and as such we have players still competing against others for particular positions, " Eve told TTFF Media yesterday.
"I am also looking at the possibility of including two overseas-based players in Khaleem Hyland and Kevin Molino because I'm taking nothing for granted in this first round."
Grenada booted T&T out of the last Olympic qualifiers at the Marvin Lee Stadium and have also qualified ahead of the "Soca Warriors" for the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup. The Grenadians also defeated T&T in the 2008 Digicel Caribbean Cup.
"We haven't particularly dealt well with Grenada at the regional tournaments. They also knocked us out of the last Olympic qualifiers. I have the experience of being a player both in Olympic and World Cup qualifiers and the most difficult games to play are in the qualifiers because it's all about getting results in order to qualify.
"You find that in the tournament itself, once you've qualified, all the teams make a greater attempt to play good, attractive football.
"Right now we have an excellent bunch of players in training and it's a case of trying to get them to play with the right intensity. We've been looking at how the other teams are playing, especially at the Gold Cup and you realise the difference with the Caribbean teams like Grenada and Guadeloupe compared to rest of CONCACAF," Eve added.
The former Joe Public and Chester City player said he felt privileged to be given the responsibility of preparing the Olympic team.
"It's a great honour, being someone who has played for country for such a long time to now step into the coaching ranks. It's a massive opportunity for me, especially seeing the way the Federation has gone before with regards to giving foreign coaches the top positions with the national teams. I feel honoured to lead my country into a qualification campaign for a tournament which we've never qualified for.
"It's a great opportunity for me and for other local coaches to show our potential. I think we have some good local coaches and the only disadvantage for some of them is that they may not have played or coached overseas to have gotten that additional experience and exposure that goes a long way.
"But generally I think we have coaches here who have really good potential," Eve said.