Early reality check from head coach Hart
Newly-installed national senior football team head coach Stephen Hart wants his new charges to think “process…not prize”.
That is what he is aiming to achieve in the next two years leading the national team, after he was selected at the expense of co-coaches Hutson Charles and Jamaal Shabazz. Charles and former national player Derek King will be Hart’s deputies, while Shabazz has turned down the role.
But with only two weeks until the CONCACAF Gold Cup kicks off on July 7 in the US—where T&T will hope to advance from a group also involving Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador—the former Canada coach conceded he can do little more than to assess the players and try to help them to prepare mentally for the challenge ahead.
Hart made it plain that he is “not a miracle worker”, and acknowledged that football coaches “do not deal in a business of patience”.
“It is the nature of the business,” he said.
The new T&T coach, who said he was only invited for the job just over a week ago, light-heartedly remarked that he knew of one person eager to see him back in T&T: his mother.
T&T Football Association (TTFA) president Raymond Tim Kee stated that Hart had not officially inked a contract yet, but he has hit the ground running with his first training session at Hasely Crawford Stadium, following yesterday’s press conference to officially present him as T&T head coach. He will also work with new TTFA director of football Leo Beenhakker, who will have a six-month stint in the position in the first instance.
Hart, who says he has “rarely” missed T&T matches despite having lived in Canada for some time, is happy to be back to head T&T’s technical team.
“It’s always in the back of a youngster’s mind to be involved with the national team. I had the opportunity as a player but did not seize it. Now I have an opportunity once again,” he told the media.
From what he’s seen of the players so far, Hart feels that they “try too hard”. He wants to help them get in the “right frame of mind”.
In just about two weeks’ time, Hart will have his first competitive chance to show his short-term impact, as T&T try to qualify for the knockout stages of the Gold Cup.
It will be no doubt a trial by fire with a team laden with expectation by a close-watching T&T public.