Trinidad and Tobago’s Under 15 Boys team will face Costa Rica in their opening match at the CONCACAF Under 15 boys Championship at IMG Academy on Sunday.
The match is scheduled for a 9am kick off. T&T have been shifted to Group D of the championship alongside Costa Rica, Portugal and Barbados. This resulted after Jamaica made a late withdrawal from the tournament.
The T&T team arrived at IMG on Friday night. T&T faces Barbados at 11am on Monday and Portugal on Wednesday at 9am.
T&T set to face European powerhouse
Trinidad and Tobago received an interesting offer on the team’s arrival at the IMG Academy in Florida for the Concacaf Boys U15 Championship. With the non-arrival of Jamaica, T&T Coach Stuart Charles-Fevrier was approached to fill their spot in Group ‘D’ as the organisers recognized that his squad recently faced Mexico and Panama in the TTFA Youth Invitational Tournament in late July and with this being a development tournament, fresh opposition seemed ideal. Fevrier accepted the offer without hesitation, “I welcome the challenge because we must play top teams from all over and those three teams are formidable in their respective regions”. Said the coach when he spoke to TTFA media.
The new opponents in group ‘D’ will be Costa Rica, Barbados and Portugal with the opening match being against the Central Americans on Sunday at 9 am.
Portugal is ranked in the top five in Europe and the T&T Coach is eager to face a topflight team. “We have to play the top teams ahead of the competition which matters, which is the qualification tournament for the 2021 FIFA Under 17 World Cup, this is my focus for this team, so leading up to that if we get opportunities to face these highly respected team we will grab at the chance”
When asked about the unflattering recent results Fevrier was confident in his reply, “Although result matter, we can’t only focus on that, this is about development and we played some unfamiliar opposition who came highly rated and we saw why in the tournament. In order for us to improve this must continue that is why I am so delighted for this new grouping.”
On Monday the under 15s will battle Caribbean neighbour Barbados who has Trinbagonian Russel Latapy in their camp. The Magician was recently appointed Head Coach of the Barbados Senior Men’s Team and is eager to see the clash of the development squads. First up for them on Sunday will be the Portuguese.
With Jamaica unfortunately failing to reach the tournament on schedule due to US Visa issues, some adjustments had to be made to the First Division fixtures, with T&T moving to its new group, Israel has been elevated from the second tier to fill our spot in group ‘A’. Also having issues with USA travel requirements are the Guatemalans who were unbale to secure Visas for some key players.
T&T had no such issues this time around and the coach indicated that all is well in the camp with the players enthusiastic about hitting the field.