THE Trinidad and Tobago Under-17 boys football team will try to upset El Salvador in the round of 16 of the Concacaf Under-17 Championships, at the Estadio Pensativo, in Guatemala on Sunday (tonight) at 9 pm TT time.
T&T qualified for the knock-out stage after finishing third in Group B with one point after getting one draw and two losses. T&T sealed their place in the knock-out phase after playing to a 1-1 draw against Barbados in the final round of the group phase. An 82nd-minute equaliser from Lindell Sween was enough to see T&T qualify for the next round.
Before the match against El Salvador, T&T lost 3-2 Canada and fell 3-1 to the US.
The T&T defence will have a challenge keeping the El Salvador attackers at bay as the Central Americans scored eight goals in group play.
El Salvador finished second in Group D after ending the preliminary stage with a crushing 4-0 win over Suriname. In earlier matches, El Salvador lost 4-1 to Honduras and defeated Haiti 3-1.
Coach Shawn Cooper said: “We want to play in transition and use the speed of our wingers in the transition—we want to stretch them,” he said. “The Central American teams don’t like you in their face and they don’t like you to run at them. They play a lot with their bodies when they don’t have the ball and try to foul you early, so you can’t use your foot speed.
“We are expecting that and we are trying to prepare our boys for that.”
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