Technical Advisor makes recommendations for Vincy Heat

Ezra Hendrickson, the technical advisor to the St Vincent and the Grenadines senior men’s outfit Vincy Heat, wants to see some new personnel included for the remainder of the World Cup campaign, as a few of the current crop of players are too complacent with their places in the team.{{more}}

Hendrickson also would like to see a search for players who are eligible to play for St Vincent and the Grenadines to help bolster the outfit, along with injection of local players who are not part of the present squad.

His plea came after St Vincent and the Grenadines was hammered four-nil by Guatemala last Tuesday at the Arnos Vale Playing Field.

“The federation has to go and try to find other players, just to make it a more competitive situation,” said Hendrickson, a former national captain, who has been assisting the team for the past month.

“We have three or four months before the next game to prepare, get an influx of players and make this a more competitive situation,” Hendrickson projected.

“If you know that you miss your marker two games in a row and you are going to get benched the next game, maybe you will pay more attention to your role as a player…. If you are not looking over your shoulder and you feel comfortable, then you will do stuff like that and get away with it…. We have to make this team deeper, more competitive so guys are not so complacent … No way in football can you continue to play poorly and not suffer the consequences,” he added.

Prior to last Tuesday’s match, the Vincentian outfit suffered a 6-1 beating to the USA last Friday in St Louis, Missouri, which further incited Hendrickson’s call.

Hendrickson noted that in both matches, the players failed to carry out instructions, a responsibility which team captain Dorren Hamlett also accepted.

“It is one thing to give up goals, but the way we are conceding goals is a concern for the team… We prepared the guys on set pieces, where guys supposed to be, who is marking, who is in certain different positions… We put them up on the wall in the locker room before, make sure the guys look at it; for some reason it’s never done… blatant disregard for instructions,” Hendrickson lamented.

He again pointed to the goals which the Guatemalans scored from set pieces.

The visitors got on the score sheet in the 24th minute, when Stefano Cincotta scored from a free kick.

Eight minutes later, Minor Lopez registered his team’s second, again from a cross ball.

Then, in the 48th minute, Dennis Lopez headed home from a Brandon De Leon’s cross.

Gerson Tinocco made it 4-0 in the 81st minute, to extend St Vincent and the Grenadines’ scoreless campaign against Guatemala.

When both sides met in 2011 in the World Cup qualifiers, Guatemala won 4-0 in their home leg and 3-0 in the away leg.

Before that, when the two outfits met in the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 1996 in the USA, Guatemala also won 4-0.

Tuesday’s loss stretched the Vincentians’ losses in the 2018 World Cup campaign to three, having also lost 1-2 to Aruba in the third round tie on September 4.

St Vincent and the Grenadines’ lone win in the campaign thus far was a 2-0 triumph over Aruba here on September 4.

Both matches in round two against Guyana ended 2-2 and 4-4, in St Vincent and the Grenadines and Guyana, respectively.

The Vincentians’ campaign continues with a meeting with Trinidad and Tobago on March 25, 2016 (Good Friday) and four days later against the same opponents at the Haseley Crawford Stadium in Trinidad.

St Vincent and the Grenadines is the lone team in the group without a point. USA and Trinidad and Tobago are both on four points, but with the USA enjoying a superior goal difference and Guatemala is on three points.

The two top teams from this group, along with the corresponding places from the other two groups, head to the Hexagonal stage of the CONCACAF zone of the qualifiers.(RT)