PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC –like Saturday’s against Grenada in St George’s will be crucial for locally-based players, as the national side continues to focus on their 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign.
Lawrence, who took over the helm of the side last January, said that with the domestic league starting late next month, it did not afford local players enough time to get themselves match fit.
T&T resume their CONCACAF World Cup qualifying final round in June with a clash against giants United States in Colorado.
“The most important thing is to try and get the boys as much competitive football as possible because with the league starting May 26 it’s not really ideal, I would have preferred for it to have started earlier,” the former national defender said.
“But with it starting on the 26th, I’m going to try and see how much football I can get into them before we get to that game on June 8.”
A full month has passed since the national side last played together, when they went down 1-0 to Mexico at the Hasely Crawford Stadium here.
And while overseas-based players have returned to their active leagues, the locally-based players will not taste competitive action until a month from now, making Saturday’s friendly all the more important.
“When you look at the structure of the league at the moment, my concern is that the local-based players are not really going to have much competitive football …,” Lawrence explained.
“So I think it is important to try and use this time now, to every now and then, get the men together as a group and get a competitive game for them so I think this will help the boys.”
T&T lie rock bottom of the CONCACAF qualifying standings on three points gained from their 1-0 victory over Panama last month.
But while their prospects of qualifying for next year’s showpiece in Russia were dealt a harsh blow with the Mexico defeat, Lawrence said his side needed to remain focused and improve on the positives coming out of that contest.
“We need to build on where we ended against Mexico. Obviously, as I have said before, it was disappointing to come out with the defeat,” he said.
“But I think there were also positives from the two games and what we need to do is try and improve on that because the next two games [away to the US and Costa Rica] everybody knows historically is not a friendly place for us.
“We don’t normally pick up points in those places but we need to go out there and we need to believe and we need to understand that we have to, some way or the other, get the results we need.”
