NATIONAL football captain Dwight Yorke is insisting that his band of Jumpers and Wavers has as good a chance as any in June’s FIFA World Cup in Germany.

The Sydney FC professional is entitled to his opinion, I suppose, but I wonder how much of that is Yorke “grand-charging” to grab media attention now that he is back at his old stomping ground in Manchester. Yorke is prepping for the national team’s next assignment against Peru in May by training with his old club, Manchester United.

I suppose we have to allow Yorke his place in the sunshine.

After all, qualifying for a World Cup by a country as small as Trinidad and Tobago is quite an achievement, especially from a Concacaf Group that has two “automatic” qualifiers on form: the United States and Mexico.

Iceland flattered to deceive in the Carnival Tuesday match in London, but I expect Peru should be a better test.

Of course, that will depend on what sort of team the South Americans are going to bring here next month.

I suspect though it will be a second-string team, since Leo Beenhakker is not going to want to travel to Germany with anything less than “supreme confidence” and he and his technical staff would have known in advance the strength of the Peruvians.

So Yorke, showman that he is, can talk the talk about springing surprises in Germany, and the second-string Peruvians are probably going to help add to these “feelings” of confidence out of the TnT camp.

But I am not even going to express my feelings on the Soca Warriors again and what is going to happen in Germany when we take on England, Sweden and Paraguay.

I think we need to look at the apparent lack of depth with our youth football at the moment.

Call me a prophet of doom, but I think that our football’s technical experts have to be crazy with what is going on with our youth football. This is a crisis situation and Lincoln “Tiger” Phillips, the TTFF’s Technical Director, seems to be tongue-tied on this particular development.

Despite a professional league, extensive zonal competitions, a well-organised schools league, nothing substantial is coming out of our youth programmes.

Last year, the Under-15 “Warriors” were trounced by our Jamaican counterparts in the semi-final of the Caribbean tournament.

Nobody said anything, nobody cried about that injustice.

How could Jamaica be three goals better than TnT at that level?

This week, the national Under-21 team had to find an equaliser in the final minute against Dominica.

Dominica?

Lo and behold, poverty-stricken Haiti then thumped Dominica with a handful in their next encounter.

It was no surprise, therefore, when Haiti kicked our Under-21 team out of contention for the CAC Games.

How could Haiti thrive in their circumstances -- scarce financial resources and political turmoil -- and TnT flounder in our circumstances, and we have the almighty Petro-dollar, a place in the 2006 World Cup Finals and a FIFA vice president?

Something is definitely wrong and we should be pressing the panic button right about now.

It would be great for TnT to show some sort of sustained growth with our football wealth following the achievements of 2005 and 2006, but if our youth teams are being outclassed by regional neighbours, then we must be deeply concerned, since this Under-21 team should be providing the next generation of senior national players.

The crafty Leo was on hand to watch Haiti crush TnT 3-1, so I expect he would have a fair idea of what is going wrong, be it technical ability on the part of the players or a lack of technical expertise on the part of the coaching staff.

And coaching does make a difference.

Use the national senior team for example.

Before Leo took over the Jumpers and Wavers, the Bertille St. Clair unit struggled for regional supremacy and could only manage one point from three matches in the World Cup qualifying campaign, despite playing two of those matches at home.

After Leo took over, the Dutch coach won his three remaining home matches, including a 2-1 come-from-behind victory over the Mexicans, and the away game to Panama.

Obviously, the powers-that-be must be contemplating technical changes at the youth levels, and money can’t be a problem, because this government is throwing it away by the billions in every nook and cranny around TnT.

But we can’t destroy our local coaches; they are the ones doing the hard work, they are the one with the day-to-day commitment, without any significant reward, I might add, so they must be appreciated.

What we need to do now is to help them by giving them the exposure to lift their profession.

Trinidad and Tobago is one of the most fortunate countries in the world. Our geographic location has never been maximised to our advantage, but I think being perched on top of this South American giant provides us with limitless opportunities.

Everything that TnT needs can be sourced out of South America, and if our football is in need of help, we can look no further than Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, for example.

It is not enough for the TTFF, the CFU and Concacaf to arrange coaching courses.

The local coaches must make the trek outside to hone their skills and gain first hand experience.

The TTFF’s next move should probably be the opening of a School of Languages so that all coaches are given an opportunity to learn Spanish and Portuguese.

Once we conquer the language barrier, then the sky is the limit, and that is not exclusive to football.