The Soca Warriors ended their 2022 Qatar World Cup journey with their second victory of the campaign after securing a 2-0 victory over St. Kitts & Nevis at the Felix Sanchez Olympics Stadium, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on Tuesday.
Head coach Terry Fenwick inserted Jesse Williams, Justin Garcia, Judah Garcia and captain Khaleem Hyland into the starting line-up. The coach who has been under severe criticism also changed the formation from 3-5-2 to 4-3-3.
It was known prior to the start of the match that St Kitts & Nevis will advance to next round of qualifiers as the group winner with 9 points from their four matches. The Soca Warriors amassed 8 points with two victories and two draws from their four matches.
In a match that should have been deciding the winner of Group F was played at pedestrian-pace apart from the only two moments of brilliance that came from midfielders Duane Muckette (36th) and Khaleem Hyland (75th).
T&T squandered their opportunity of qualifying on Saturday after drawing 0-0 against the 201 world-ranked Bahamas who were on the receiving end of 15 goals in their previous three matches in the campaign.
Fenwick said in a post-match interview, “I`m very pleased with the results that is four games away from home… two victories, two draws. We are obviously disappointed that we are not advancing to the next round of World Cup Qualifiers but I am proud of the players.”
The Englishman added, “We dominated the game particularly first half, I felt we could have scored more goals; we had plenty opportunities. The players were magnificent, they kept to the task, they moved the ball quickly and created 5 or 6 chances. The game could have been a more comfortable victory.”
Speaking on issues faced throughout the campaign, he said, “We have got terrible challenges back in T&T, the Normalization Committee have been dealing with debts around the association that means that we had very little of any support in months. We have had no friendly games, no preparations for these qualifiers and it has been very difficult for the players.”
Skipper Hyland commented, “It is difficult for us to come out the group like this because we wanted to top the group.” He added, “We have the talent and we have a lot of youngsters now and a lot of players who are not in the squad at the moment.” He continued to speak on the importance of mixing the experienced players with the upcoming youngsters.
