“Rest assured I will give 100 percent,” said new coach Dwight Yorke, mere moments after touching down on local soil to take up the unenviable position of head coach of the senior national football team.
Yorke walked into the VIP Lounge of the Piarco International Airport and brought with him predictable excitement which the former Strike Squad, Aston Villa and Manchester United striker hopes to build on for the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers that will get going from next year.
He was not without his trademark smile, having been dubbed ‘The Smiling Assassin’ in the English Premier League (EPL), but in portraying a realistic image Yorke said he expects to face his most challenging times.
“For me, I have done it all as a player really but now I am on the other side of it, so this would be the most challenging times because you can only control so much as a manager. When you’re a player you can affect the game in certain ways but as a manager, you can’t,” Yorke said.
“Within me, I feel very calm, and very excited at the same time but fully aware of the challenges that lay ahead. There is a lot of hard work to be done, and not just by me, but by the backroom staff, and the players to get where we want to get with one eye on trying to qualify for the World Cup and I think it’s important that we keep that focus but come in and work hard to get us to the level that we want to get.”
Yorke also made himself familiar to the members of the new T&T Football Association (TTFA) executive, president Kieron Edwards, his vice presidents Colin Murray, Jameson Rigues and Osmond Downer at the TTFA office at the Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva, yesterday, as well as other members of the T&TFA membership.
Edwards promised that attempts will be made for Yorke to have access to an international friendly encounter for the coming FIFA Window at the end of the month, but as he reminisced on the country’s lone qualification at a World Cup in 2006 in Germany, he noted it would take a great deal of support.
“Everybody has to be on board. It’s already a small country as it is, and we’ve seen what 2006 brought to the nation, we want to recreate that, we know what it takes to get there, you need everyone to get involved from the government to the private sector, and the people of T&T to get behind the team, because these boys need all the encouragement that they can get.”
“I guess along the way, there’s going to be some testing times for us, but that’s what the challenge that lies ahead like, so once we embrace it, once we’re fully aware of it, and once we get the support, I fully believe and feel fully confident that we can get the job done,” Yorke said.
He is set to name his coaching staff soon, which is rumoured to include his former teammate and good friend Russell Latapy. Together, the duo led Macarthur FC to the Australian A-League title back in 2022.
For Yorke, it was his first stint as a coach since he received his coaching badge in 2010 and harboured aspirations of coaching at his first EPL club Aston Villa. Yorke said he knew coaching was going to fit in his career but it came faster than he expected.
“I am very excited, it’s a real honour and privilege to be given such a prestigious position as head coach. That I thought would happen at some time in my career but I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, nevertheless, it’s something that I embraced, and I am excited about.
“I feel the love from so many people since the appointment, and I suppose when you look back with all the history behind, T&T football which I have been heavily involved in for so many years- November 19th, 1989, and it has been 19 years since I’ve captained the team when T&T qualified for the World Cup, and then the shirt number that I wore was 19, so you can probably say it has been written in the script somewhere along the line, but I’m very excited. This is a great honour and a real privilege for me to be given this job, and rest assured I will give 100 percent,” he said.
