Latest News

April 2004

I will begin this month’s Latest news with the bad news; our second game for the World Cup Qualifiers was a disaster from start to finish.

A 5-1 thrashing was what we got and if I am honest it is what we deserved, it was the worst performance I have seen in my two years here and while only two or three of the lads did themselves any justice the others were very much below par. As I sift through the wreckage as it were there are a few things that I feel we need to address. We must get International games before such games, and of course more time to prepare. It is hard looking at the reasons for the defeat but in a nutshell I think that we froze on the night and made too many school boy errors all five of there goals came as a result of either poor defending or a silly mistake and at this level you get punished for it. If there is any consolation it is that perhaps this result will shake a few people up and make them realise we have a long way to go and that after two years of good results people were starting to think that we had already become a big team. Hopefully we will get things sorted for the tough away game against Japan in June.

The good news is our U19 who I have sent to play in the SAF Games which is an U23 event though you are allowed to have three over age players in the side as well. Having reached the final our youngsters did tremendously well and showed everyone the great steps we have made in the development of the youngsters. Playing against vastly more experienced sides and in a tough atmosphere I thought they did well. In the final we played the hosts - surprise! - and though we did not play to our potential I thought we did well. We eventually went down 0-1 and another silver medal!!! For the record we had beaten Pakistan 1-0 in the earlier round. After the recent performance against Oman it was nice to get a good performance in the SAF Games of course the Gold would have been lovely. For me though I was more interested in the boys getting the games and the experience and not too worried as to if we win it or not. We took the decision to send the U19s as the SAF region doesn’t give us the stronger opposition we need to improve at senior level. Playing against supposedly U23s will greatly benefit our young players. As usual the host in these tournaments always manages to get to the final and of course why should this tournament be any different needing a point to go through Bangladesh were knocked out in the last minute by a hugely controversial penalty decision! , losing 1-0 I am afraid no sympathy from me as one of the reasons I chose not to send a senior side was the way in which the Indian team were treated in the SAF Cup in Bangladesh last year, an absolute travesty and so the trend continues, make sure the host wins the tournament. Allegations are already surfacing that several of the Pakistani players were in the late twenties and there coach has been caught forging the passports!! Interesting, as many of the players who played in this tournament were indeed playing for the senior team in the SAF Cup.

Finally to all the people who have written in with letters of support and telling me to keep going thank you I was disappointed to say the least but this is football win some you lose some.
Take care and a Happy Easter to all those that celebrate it.

Stephen