Boyce reflects on CFU U-14 Series

T&T U-14 Boys Close Out CFU Challenge Series With 4-1 Victory

Trinidad and Tobago’s Under-14 Boys ended their CFU U-14 Challenge Series campaign on a winning note in Punta Cana, defeating French Guiana 4-1.

Jair Nanton scored twice, in the 14th and 28th minutes, while Jake Correia struck in the 27th and Zidan Tinto added the fourth in the 44th minute.

The result took T&T to four points from their three matches after an opening draw against Puerto Rico and a 4-1 defeat to Haiti. Despite Wednesday’s victory, T&T did not advance, with Bermuda progressing as the best second-placed team.

Head Coach Randolph Boyce said the players went into the French Guiana match knowing exactly what was required in terms of goal difference.

“Today we basically set them some KPIs in terms of what we looked at in the group, and we set a target in terms of how much we probably needed to score to be able to get into the second round,” Boyce said.

“For us, it would have been like five or six goals. We conceded one, so we had to add another one to it. We started off nicely in terms of chasing down the target and we fell short of the target.

“At the time, we were hoping it would still be enough to get us through to the next round based on the other results. We had to depend on the Dominican Republic beating Bermuda by two clear goals.”

For Boyce, however, the tournament was always about much more than simply whether T&T advanced.

He said one of the biggest areas of focus throughout the competition was helping the players understand their own performances and make better decisions on the field.

“We kept motivating them and encouraging them about the positive things that they have been doing,” Boyce said.

“We had the opportunity to review the games back on the television, rewind the game, pause it and point out the positives and the negatives, and they were taking it in good light.

“Now they had an opportunity to actually see it for themselves because sometimes when you are telling them something, they tend to say, ‘Nah, that wasn’t me.’ So now they had the opportunity to see for themselves.”

Boyce identified decision-making as one of the major areas which the group must continue to improve.

“The biggest area where we need to improve is decision-making, knowing our options and which one of the options is the better one to pick at that point in time,” he said.

“I think they have grown a lot through this tournament. We have seen the growth every day. We have seen the step in the right direction.”

That progress, he said, was not limited to what happened during the matches.

Each day the squad went through mobilisation and stretching sessions, while the technical staff also conducted classroom work using the blackboard and video.

“Each morning they would have to do the mobilisation, the stretches and so on, and we saw a better sense of growth towards what we want from them,” Boyce explained.

“Every day they would have a technical session on the blackboard and on the television.”

The next step, he said, is to place greater emphasis on the individual development of each player.

“What we need to do, and what we will do, is structure an individual plan for each player because every player has different strengths and different weaknesses,” Boyce said.

“We need to identify that for them. They will train as normal, but they will also be able to do work in specific areas to come up to the level that we want them to come up to.

“The beautiful thing about it is that some of them are identifying those things for themselves.”

Boyce therefore described the tournament as a positive experience, even though he understands that many supporters will naturally judge the team by wins, losses and draws.

“I think the tournament is a plus,” he said.
“As a country, we tend to look at win, loss and draw, but the format of the competition by CFU and FIFA is more developmental.”

One feature he particularly welcomed was the tournament regulation which requires every fit player to receive a minimum amount of playing time.

“One of the things people don’t know much about is how they structure the tournament, where everybody has to play 70 minutes,” Boyce explained.

“Each player must complete 70 minutes. Otherwise you may be disqualified, maybe fined points or maybe stripped, depending on the CFU committee and the decision they make, once the player is healthy and not injured.

“It is interesting and I like it because it means development will be taking place.”

Boyce believes the regulation prevents young players from being brought to tournaments only to spend most of their time on the bench because a coach is focused solely on results.

“Otherwise, you could bring a player and that player might get 15 minutes or 20 minutes because you are fighting to win, and you forget about the development of the player,” he said.

“So this format is something I think we could even introduce into Trinidad and Tobago to encourage development.

“It might be a task on the administration side to keep check of the minutes they accumulate, but I think it was nice.”

Looking back on T&T’s opening encounter against Puerto Rico, Boyce felt the team produced a strong performance and displayed many of the characteristics the staff wants to develop.

“During the first game, we played a really good game,” he said.

“We want them to play in the manner in which they played, with the high tempo, because we want to see the strengths and weaknesses. We want to see what our faults are. We want to see what we have to correct at this developmental stage so we know what we have to come back and work on.”

Boyce said being placed in a difficult group was also important for exposing the young players to the standard required internationally.

“I am glad that the group we were in was a tough group,” he said.

“If you go and play in an easy group and you win, to me that is a false positive and we wouldn’t learn much.

“We need to see where the gap is and then know how to go and close the gap and what to do to close the gap.”

He acknowledged that this developmental approach can sometimes be at odds with the expectations of supporters, who naturally want to see national teams win.

“That is a different thing from my mindset to a spectator mindset, to a supporter mindset or somebody who is patriotic about Trinidad and Tobago football,” Boyce said.

“Their main focus, even if it is U-14, U-17 or U-20, is on the ‘W’ and where you finish, and not necessarily on the well-being and the development of the player.
“So there are different perspectives.”

On the Puerto Rico match specifically, Boyce felt there was very little separating the teams.
“I think that game could have gone anywhere. It could have gone in our favour, but unfortunately we didn’t get the victory. We got a draw,” he said.

“I think it was a fair, balanced game. Puerto Rico is a good side.”

The 4-1 defeat against Haiti provided a different type of lesson.

Boyce said he deliberately avoided being overly critical of the players after that match because many of the goals came from individual mistakes which are part of the learning process at this age.

“The Haiti game, I wasn’t too critical on the players or coming down on them or anything like that,” he said.

“We had too many individual mistakes, but we reviewed back the game, pointed out the mistakes and showed them.

“Nobody goes out to play to make a mistake. Mistakes happen and they are in a developmental stage.”

He felt the final score did not entirely reflect the possibilities within the match.

“We believe that if we didn’t make so many mistakes, especially so early in the game, the game could have been a closer finish,” Boyce said.

“We also had two really nice, clear opportunities in the game that we didn’t take.”

Boyce was complimentary of Haiti’s development programme and said there are lessons T&T can take from what other countries in the region are doing.

“Haiti is a nice, developed team. They are doing something good there with the development that we could take note of,” he said.

“We had conversations with all the teams, in terms of the management and staff. We had conversations with all of them to find out how they do things and to learn from it, because that is what the tournament is for — learning from each other.”

He said the T&T staff intends to take some of those lessons back home and make adjustments to the programme.

“We would definitely be doing some things differently and adding some things,” Boyce said.

“And I know we will have the support on the back end to be able to do things differently, just as we need the backing of the other coaches, the clubs and the schools.”

Boyce returned repeatedly to what he sees as one of the central challenges facing youth football — finding the correct balance between winning and developing players.

“Everybody keeps chasing the ‘W’ and not the development,” he said.

“So it is between winning and development where people have to decide where they want to be.

“No matter the age group — it can be nine, it can be eight, it can be ten — sometimes the focus is on the ‘W’ rather than the ‘D’, which is the development.

“But that is a different perspective and probably a different conversation for another time.”

From a playing standpoint, Boyce said the staff deliberately asked the U-14s to adopt an aggressive, high-pressing style throughout the competition.

“We chose to play in the high-press way because we want to get them playing that way at an international level,” he said.

“When they become comfortable with that, we will know that there are different methods and different ways to play at different times, different phases and different moments of the game, and we will introduce them to that as they go further.”

The first priority, however, is raising the overall speed and intensity of Trinidad and Tobago’s youth football.

“We want to bring up the energy level and the way that we play,” Boyce said.

“We play too laid-back and too slow sometimes, so we want to change the culture a little bit and let the culture be aggressive and let the culture be about playing a little faster.

“If you play fast, you have to think faster. You have to make your decisions faster.

“Speed of thought, speed of play, speed of decision-making — speed of everything.”
Boyce added that once the players become comfortable operating at that tempo, they can then learn how to manage different phases of a match and recognise when to slow the game down.

“If we could reach that level, then we could understand the different moments when we need to slow down and those kinds of things,” he said.

“But first we have to know that we have to reach somewhere.”

“For that reason, even the heavy defeat to Haiti was something Boyce considered valuable.

“The Haiti game was a nice eye-opener,” he said.

“It showed us a lot of faults that we have. So now we know what to go back and try to tighten up on, what areas to work in, and hopefully if we meet them again we can have a closer game and get a victory.”

For Boyce, the overall outcome from Punta Cana was therefore measured not only in four points and one victory, but also in what the players and staff were able to learn.

“All in all, it was a good experience for the boys, a good experience for the staff and a good experience for the Member Association as well,” he said.

“Now we see how we push forward from here.”