With the St. Vincent & the Grenadines Senior Men's National Football team out of the Digicel Caribbean Cup 2010 - having lost all three of their matches against Trinidad & Tobago, Haiti, and Guyana - one can very easily conjure a sense of hopelessness where Vincy football is concerned. However, let us not forget that approximately 90% of all participants within our national football programme are players 21 years or younger. We can bask is the fact that these players are yet to reach their peak performance.
In fact, an unprecedented 9 members of the Vincy Heat senior squad which recently competed in Trinidad, had previously participated in the CFU U20 World Cup Qualifiers back in 2008 - 2009 - the youngest of the lot being the 17 year old Vincentian football sensation Myron Samuel. Many are of the opinion that these youngsters might just have been shortchanged with the appointment of Samuel "Sammy" Carrington as their technical advisor and coach. However, I would prefer not to highlight that particular issue today. What I would say however, is that a resignation should be forth-coming - someone failed Vincy Football big-time.
It is on this note that we shift our attention to the Vincy Heat U20 squad that is currently preparing for a home and away CFU U20 World Cup qualifying tie against arch-rivals Trinidad & Tobago. All reports indicate that the young lads are adamant on avoiding a similar fate to that of their senior counterparts. Truth be told, the young lads have all but an excuse for failure. The St. Vincent & the Grenadines Football Federation's failure to promote their coach, Mr. Kendall Mercury to the helm of the Senior squad for its latest outing - notwithstanding a national outcry for this move - has turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the young Vincy Heat hopefuls.
Mercury has thus far proven his worth as a world-class coach - possessing a wealth of knowledge and a highly creative outlook on the game. His understudies clearly revere his exceptional abilities and have witnessed record leaps in the development of their own coaching competencies under his watch. Coach Mercury is undoubtedly serious on discipline - so much so that he has been criticized on numerous occasions for being "too hard" on his players. But there certainly has to be a valid reason for him being avowed "Coach of the Year" on two consecutive occasions.
So the Vincy Heat U20s are currently in training and would be putting all that they have learnt over the course of the past several months to the test come November 19th, 2010 at the Victoria Park as they take on Trinidad & Tobago's U20 outfit in the first leg of their home and away tie.
Come, let us rally around the future of Vincy Football.
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