MAJOR Nedd, manager of the Defence Force team who are here to battle against Linden’s Milerock tomorrow at the Mackenzie Sports Club ground, when the second round of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Club championship continues, has vouched that while the home team players from Linden are relatively unknown to them “they would not be taken for granted” and that “as with any team, we come to win”. Just hours after arriving in Guyana, the manager, along with coach Sergeant Ross Russel and Fleet Chief Officer David Cumberbatch, visited Linden to see the match venue for the game.
Speaking about his team, Major Nedd said that while it is the first time for the Defence Force as a team to visit these shores, some of his players have played on attachment to the Guyana Defence Force before, in the annual Christmas football extravaganza, the Kashif and Shanghai tournament.
Just after inspecting the MSC facility he observed that there was room for lots of improvement but noted “based on the locality, I wish we had this as our home ground back in Trinidad because we would have done a lot of development work over it.
“Honestly, again it is all about infrastructural development, it is about financial support from the corporate sponsors or even the Government.”
Asked to give an insight of his team Major Nedd posited, “If you look into the history books the Defence Force football team was established since 1974, and  we would have won numerous league titles in Trinidad and Tobago and we would have been the only team in the Caribbean Football Union part of CONCACAF to reach the furthest in CFU football such as this.
So we would have reached quarterfinals against River Plate of Argentina. So again, based on our history, we intend to give our best.”
Looking at how they will approach this game he said, “We have learnt from our mistakes and we know a few players from Milerock FC who would have played football in TT Pro Leagues and they would not be taken for granted.”
Without stating names Major Nedd disclosed, “Our team would have had five to ten players who would have had, be it junior level experience or senior level experience. So we have quite a lot of national and international mix in the team. All of the players of course are serving members of the Defence Force.”
He observed that “for the last three to five years we weren’t up in the higher echelons of the standings and again that would be based on trying to find that perfect gel, which I believe we have found now and we intend to continue with this kind of performance for the next two to three years coming.
“So we intend to be a regular fixture in CFU and by extension CONCACAF.”
He continued, “We intend to give a creditable performance in CFU and by extension CONCACAF because we have also been slotted to represent the Americas in the 5th edition of the Military World Games that we qualified for in Suriname coming second to so-called ‘super power’ Brazil. But again we have a lot at stake to give a very good show.”
Still pressed to give names Major Nedd was adamant that his team is one without any player to be made known above the other only saying “in the entire Defence Force team, there is no one star player, that is the depth of our team”.