In the Guardian -not that shithole Guardian in Trinidad- the UK Guardian; Russell Latapy admits to smoking 10 cigarettes a day. Now, all Trinidadians and Tobagonians know that not all of those ten cigarettes come in nice, clean packs from the supermarket, but that's another story.

The Little Magician, as we call him in these parts says "it is something I choose to do and it has never affected my performance." He went further in his ignorant mind to say "I don't smoke a lot and never in the public domain or in front of the team at training or the like."

Reading that shit makes me very worried. It's one thing to have a nicotine addict (Leo Beenhakker) as coach, but when one of your main playmakers is smoking ten cigarettes a day, that's a problem.
In fact, if you ask me I think Latapy and a few others are quite fortunate to be there competing in the highest stage of football. If this were a serious football nation we would never take a team so filled to the brim with geriatrics. The squad has two goalkeepers (Jack and Hislop) over 36, a centre-midfielder (Latapy) who's what? 38? And the Captain is 36 I think.

The team is simply too old. Even Aurtis Whitley whom I believe is the best player on the team is almost 30. To me that's where this team will be defeated; as we have seen in the past with Cameroon and Senegal you can over come experience, but it will be far more difficult to overcome old age, and especially so when you are smoking ten 'cough cough' cigarettes.

Labels: chain smoking, Russel Latapy