Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport Editor
Jamaica's Teofore Bennett prepares to beat St. Lucian midfielder Elijah Joseph during a Digicel Caribbean Cup match at the National Stadium last December. - IAN ALLEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
LOS ANGELES, California:
GUIDED BY an ambition to achieve for himself, his siblings and the thought of their mom, Teofore Bennett is quietly kicking towards his goal.
It is all about playing in Europe, thousands of miles away from his home in the western coastline village of Trelawny.
Bennett has covered some ground since getting involved in the sport at a competitive level at a youthful age.
Then, he lived in Kingston at Mountain View Avenue, where he played for Mountain View Primary School and an "Under-14 team that Frank Brown controlled at the time".
DACOSTA CUP
He never played for a club, per se, but left at about age 14-15 for Trelawny to live with his father. Later, he started attending Cedric Titus High School and played on the daCosta Cup team. It enhanced his football to the point where he was suitable enough to later represent Village United, helping them to earn a place in the National Premier League.
He finally got a break last season, moving onto the United States where he has been playing for the Virginia Beach Mariners.
"It's been good so far," the striker says of his stint. "I've played a couple of games, scored a couple of goals and got a couple of assists. We've won a couple of games so the people in Virginia love me, so I'm just building and developing myself out there."
Continuing, he said: "I've learnt a lot of things. I've learnt how to move off the ball, how to put myself into space and I've learnt how to create. "It's fully professional," he says while making a comparison with Village. "It's totally different. When you go to Virginia Beach for training, you've to be there 45 minutes before training.The games are somewhat different. You've to be there two hours before games. It's totally different than in Jamaica."
The former Village striker has scored three goals and provided five assists in nine matches, helping his team to sixth in the 14-team league. "We're positioned good now ... eight teams go to the play-offs," he observed of the competition's final stages. The preliminaries are set to finish on September 20 but if the Mariners advance, their season will be extended to October.
Commenting further, Bennett said: "We look like we're going to the play-offs. I'm trying to develop my career, trying to get some more caps in the national team because I'm looking to Europe next year or the other year.." His interests are being looked after by Logosport, whose main agent is Eric Manasse, as well as Pat Garel.
Not surprising are his role models, not only because they're from Europe but their style and what they represent. "I look up to Andrei Shevchenko and I look up to Ruud Van Nistlerooy," admitted Bennett. "They're very good players playing in Europe and they score a lot of goals. They play with speed and I play with speed."
A former Under-23 national representative Bennett, who has been in and out of the national team, scored his sixth goal in Sunday's 3-3 humdinger against South Africa in the CONCACAF Gold Cup.
"I know I've to work hard to get where I want to go. I see myself building to be a very good player in the future because I'm 24 years," observed Bennett. "I see myself building and developing over the next two to three years and reaching where I want to reach. My main goal right now is to win the Gold Cup and then I want to play in Europe."
MAN U ALL THE WAY
Asked about his favourite team, the soft-spoken, quick-talking striker exclaimed: "Oh God man! Manchester United is my favourite team since I was a boy. I desperately want to go there but if I don't get to go there, once I'm
in Europe I'm ok." That in itself would present plenty of opportunities for the man who wants to make things right for his 14-year-old brother and 22-year-old sister as well.
A lot of that desire is driven by the effort their mom made
while raising them in trying circumstances in the Mountain View area, before she passed away in 2002.
"When I was living on Mountain View Avenue with my mom, at the time, things weren't going so smooth, poverty and so forth. You know how it stays in the ghetto, so we had to go back to Trelawny," he explains of his past.
At the time of her death, Bennett recalls "... it was very, very difficult, even now sometimes I can't stop thinking about my mom but I've got to move on. "My mom tried her best to send me and my brother and sister to school and now it's just me and them, we've nobody else. Now I've got to go and achieve what my mom wanted me to achieve so that they can be happy, so I definitely have to make it for them. I'm going to work hard to achieve my goals."
DISCIPLINE AND HARD WORK
Asked for a word to describe himself, Bennett responds quickly, "discipline." He added: "I'm not as talented and skilful like many other players in Jamaica but it's just discipline and hard work that got me where I am."
For one who excelled at the game and has been around top class players and the game for basically all his life, it wouldn't be at all bad to label national senior team manager Howard Bell a football psychic.
On Saturday after interviewing Bennett, when asked to comment on the player Bell predicted that he "... will do well when given his chance", while listing some qualities the player possess that can make him succeed.
"He has improved in terms of his professionalism and commitment since he has gone overseas to the Virginia Beach Mariners. It has shown in training. He has played one game since being overseas with them, against Honduras, and while it wasn't the ideal situation because we had nine people and he had to do more defensive work, he applied himself. But he did well, was very enthusiastic and will do well when he gets his chance."
On the basis of Bennett's 80th minute effort, the manager's comments were on the ball. Truth be told, Bennett seems a very humble and quiet individual. But the goal he scored Sunday may have sounded a loud statement and there is definitely no denying that this striker is kicking towards a goal.
