Eve, Nakhid and Cyrus support King appointment as T&T new coach

Derek King’s ap­point­ment as se­nior na­tion­al foot­ball coach did not come as a sur­prise on Mon­day to the foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty.

For many, it was a sign of sta­bil­i­ty for lo­cal foot­ball. Two coach­es, Dex­ter Cyrus and An­gus Eve, and a for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain, David Nakhid, de­scribed the ap­point­ment as log­i­cal, as the coach has worked un­der many coach­es in the past, among them Stephen Hart, who guid­ed the coun­try to quar­ter­fi­nal plac­ings at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in 2013 and 2015, An­gus Eve, and Dwight Yorke, whom he took over from as the coun­try’s in­ter­im coach in March.

King, a re­place­ment for for­mer coach Dwight Yorke as an in­ter­im when Yorke and the par­ent T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion part­ed ways in March, was giv­en a one-year con­tract with an op­tion to re­new. Yes­ter­day, Eve, who was strange­ly re­placed by King in an in­ter­im po­si­tion, be­fore Yorke was giv­en the nod by the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion for the head coach job for the World Cup Qual­i­fiers, told Guardian Me­dia Sports that King was hand­ed a Michael Car­rick role to sta­bilise the foot­ball.

Eve said, “I think it’s at a time where the TTFA is right now, in a fi­nan­cial spot, so I think it’s a good de­ci­sion now. Derek has been around for so long, be­ing the as­sis­tant coach to sev­er­al coach­es, span­ning over maybe more than a decade al­ready. And, you know, putting him in to try to sta­bilise the team for a year, be­cause I think I read there’s a one-year con­tract that he has got­ten.”

“So in that case, it’s prob­a­bly a Michael Car­rick sce­nario where he goes in there, he tries to sta­bilise, and if he does well enough, maybe he gives him­self an op­por­tu­ni­ty to get the job much longer. So, you know, I wish him all the best. I called him, I told him, I wish him all the best, be­cause Trinidad foot­ball needs some pos­i­tiv­i­ty, and the TTFA be­lieves that he is the per­son at this point in time.”

Sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were echoed by David Nakhid, a for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain who is now Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs. Ac­cord­ing to Nakhid, King’s ap­point­ment was the right choice. “I think he has a one-year con­tract, right? So let’s see what he can do in a year. I can’t tell if it’s the right choice. I mean, every­body thought Dwight and Rus­sell were the right choic­es, but it didn’t turn out to be so. I re­mem­ber the whole hoopla when Ter­ry Fen­wick was ap­point­ed. They thought that was the right choice, too. So you don’t know how these things turn out. For now, I’m go­ing to wish him all the best,” said Nakhid.

Nakhid, who played pro­fes­sion­al­ly in Bel­gium, Switzer­land, Greece, Lebanon, T&T, the Unit­ed States, Swe­den, and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates for KSV Waregem, Grasshop­per, PAOK, Al-Ansar, Joe Pub­lic, New Eng­land Rev­o­lu­tion, Emi­rates Club, Al-Ma­bat­tah, and Cale­do­nia AIA, said King en­tered the na­tion­al team when he was the cap­tain.

“He’s a nice young boy. I haven’t seen him change. He looks like he’s will­ing to work with the lo­cal play­ers. He said he’s go­ing to do that, from what I saw, so he’s go­ing to work with the lo­cal play­ers, which is im­por­tant.”

An­oth­er play­er, Dex­ter Cyrus, once a strik­er for the red, white and black of T&T, said the length of time that King has been as­sis­tant coach to these head coach­es, I don’t think most peo­ple would have a prob­lem with him.

Mean­while, Eve, who is hailed as hav­ing the best record among the coach­es dur­ing his ca­reer with a record of 11 wins, five draws and sev­en loss­es in 23 match­es, with 45 goals scored and 36 con­ced­ed, had some ad­vice for King. “ First­ly, pick your own staff and be brave enough to stand up and get the peo­ple that you want to work with you. That’s the key.

The TTFA, seem­ing­ly, the pres­i­dent an­nounced some games, so we know that he’s get­ting match­es lead­ing up to the Na­tions League in Sep­tem­ber, which is most im­por­tant to have him have the team.”

“There’s not a lot of time for a na­tion­al coach. I don’t know why peo­ple went in there think­ing that it’s three or four days be­fore you have a match. So you have to de­vise a plan, a way, so that you can win match­es and get re­sults. That is what his job is. His job is not to de­vel­op play­ers. That has to hap­pen in the younger teams. His job is to get re­sults. I’m back­ing him, and hope­ful­ly, he can get those re­sults to sta­bilise our foot­ball again,” Eve said.

King, since tak­ing over the team, saw his charges lose 3-0 in a friend­ly against Bo­livia, be­fore go­ing down to Venezuela 4-1 and lat­er Gabon 3-2 from the penal­ty spot, af­ter a 2-2 tie at the end of reg­u­la­tion time.

King’s will now shift his fo­cus to a friend­ly against Rus­sia in the USA on June 9.