Youthful Warriors in Right Direction with Fenwick

 

Within the past decade the Trinidad and Tobago Soca Warriors have seen two beaver tricks of managers leave the TTFA franchise with most recent being 2006 World Cup Warrior, Dennis Lawrence. This meant the introduction of former England international Mr. Terry Fenwick. Coach Fenwick has a lot of experience having played in the 1986 FIFA World Cup for England. He's also known as one of the players who Diego Maradona passed when he scored the "Goal of the Century". Along with the FIFA World Cup experience he played a total of 455 games which spans across the clubs Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City and Swindon Town all based in England. In December 2019 Fenwick was appointed as the new man in charge of the warriors and it didn't take long for the nation to see changes.

As we know 2020 has been a troublesome year with the uproar of the COVID-19 pandemic putting all sports on a hault in Trinidad and Tobago. However, the Honourable Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Rowely stated in mid-June that the playing of sports may be resumed and Coach Fenwick did not hesitate at all and so he began having National Senior Team training in the Police Baracks, St. James with all the talented "ballers" he can get his hands on in the country. One of the things he's doing different that the previous managers failed to seriously look into is the implementation of the young talent in the current senior team setup. Fenwick pulled together a 40 man training squad where he cut that number down to 29 men. The team comprises of three(3) players over the age 30 and the remainder of the squad range from 16-26 years of age with names like Kareem Riley, Judah Garcia, Michael Poon Angeron, Che Benny and 16 year old Molik Khan just to name a few. The players that were cut from the 29 man squad were placed in a "B Team" where there will be an opportunity for them to take another players spot once they're performing.

Throughout the various training sessions Coach Fenwick makes sure and emphasize that he has 23 players who play professionally overseas that are all eligible for a call up to the senior team ranks. Saying this he says is to ensure the guys are always on their toes and play at the top of their games. Fenwick is taking an approach like German Head Coach Joachim Lowe as he removed older players like Jerome Boateng, Thomas Muller and Matt Hummels from the national team setup to make room for the younger upcoming footballers like Jonathan Tah, Niklas Sule and Serge Gnarbry. Coach Fenwick also said he's targeting the youth footballers of Trinidad and Tobago to take up as many spots on the national senior team as their muscle groups work better than older players, there speed, strength and fitness levels are more elite.

What Terry Fenwick has done with introducing youth to a high intensity level of football would be a step on the right path in making T&T Football reach to where it was in 2006 and guiding these young men to play football in professional leagues outside of Trinidad and Tobago.