Trinidad and Tobago’s Under 17 national team arrived in Panama City on Thursday night to engage in the final round of CONCACAF qualification for the 2013 FIFA Under 17 World Cup.
The 20-man squad, which has been supported by the Ministry of Sport is captained by midfielder Brendon Creed and coached by Shawn Cooper with Terrance Marcelle and former national player Leonson Lewis as the assistant coaches. Ross Russell is the goalkeeper coach. TTFF Technical Director Anton Corneal will also accompany the team which is being managed by Christopher Gouveia.
Corneal, who led T&T to the 2007 FIFA Under 17 World Cup in South Korea, is expecting T&T to challenge for one of the two spots available for the quarter-finals from the three-team group. T&T faces Canada in its opening game on Saturday at the Estadio Agustin Muquita in La Chorrera from 7:30pm T&T time. Corneal’s team in 2007 defeated Canada in the final round of qualification in Kingston, Jamaica.
“It’s an interesting group for us and we have done most of what we can to get the current squad up to a level of readiness for this final round,” Corneal told TTFF Media.
“We’ve done it before and I think the last set of warm up matches, including the ones against the United States have put us in a good frame of mind for the competition,” he added.
Cooper meantime is also optimistic of the team’s chances. T&T also faces Costa Rica at the same venue on Tuesday at 10pm
“I think this team has matured well over the past few weeks. We didn’t make it past the quarter-final round in 2011 when Canada knocked us out but I think this time we are better ready for the challenge ahead of us. The boys are very eager and while the preparations we eventually got in recent weeks should have been on the program maybe a year or two before, we think we’ve done everything possible at this stage to get the team ready,” Cooper added.
The T&T team will be based at the Intercontinental Hotel Playa Bonita Resort and will train at the match venue on Friday evening.
Four teams from CONCACAF will qualify for the 2013 FIFA Under 17 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates in October. Local fans can follow Saturday's match on Radio 105 FM in T&T.