Trinidad and Tobago's dreams of going and playing in France came to an end on a cold day in Richmond. The team lost to the USA 0-2 in what has been described by many as the worst performance ever seen by Trinidad and Tobago. Key to the game was the marking of Dwight Yorke by Alexi Lalas. This effectively took him out of the game. The defensive effort by the USA can be credited with the win. With Yorke nullified it was left to Jerren Nixon with the support of Latapy and Lewis to generate offence. However, inserted into the defensive lineup was Pope who ran step for step with Nixon 90% of the time. When Nixon broke free up came Dooley to cover him. By contrast the T&T back four played the US wingers and attackers soft. When compared to the job that Lalas did on Yorke (allowing him no space, if Lalas continued to play that way he should have asked Yorke to marry him.) the back four of T&T allowed striker Wynalda and other wingers so much space and time that it took many of them by surprise. Dexter Francis and Anthony Rougier did a good job of out muscling US attackers at times. Rougier in particular looked very good in defence. However, the same could not be said for other "defenders" Dexter Lee and Marvin Faustin. Those two looked completely out of their element, as they ran around and scrambled to cover the attacking US players. Marvin Faustin was inserted to as a attacking defender. However, his passes were either weak or missed the mark completely. Too many times did Faustin have the ball and try to pass it off to a marked Yorke or missed the target of another player and ended up running to cover the counter attack. Latapy at times looked like a superstar and at other times just held on to the ball too much. The same could be said about David Nahkid. He made some very good runs at the heart of the US defence and found daylight. However, he could not or would not pass it off to anyone. He had some terrible give aways which left the back four constantly on there heels. Who T&T missed was Clint Marcelle whose speed would of made a difference. Playing well was Leonson Lewis who at times ran pass the defence. Dwarika also had a good game. In short the defensive scheme that the USA did to T&T should have been done to the USA as well. For T&T to qualify it will require them to win all matches by wide margins and and the hope that the USA wins all it's games by huge margins. Next game for T&T will be versus the USA on November 24th at home. The focus should now be on the year 2000 when the next round of qualifing will begin. Coming in those years will be Stern John, Jerren Nixon, Arnold Dwarika and Evans Wise.

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