Trinidad and Tobago’s National Under 20 footballers rallied back with two goals in injury time to earn a 2-2 draw with St Vincent and the Grenadines U-20s in a warm up encounter in Victoria on Friday.
The second outing saw T&T dominate proceedings but fell behind in the 65th minute through a penalty an then in the 85th minute Williams was the unfortunate scorer of another own goal.
T&T kept the pressure on the hosts and pulled a goal back in the 91st minute when a Marvin Manswell cross was turned in by a St Vincent defender. And a minute later Gay powered a shot goalwards which the goalkeeper partially blocked before Sheldon Bateau buried the rebound into the left corner for the equalizer.
St Vincent are preparing for a final Caribbean round with Jamaica, Haiti and Dominican Republic in January from which the winning team will advance to the CONCACAF Finals in T&T in March, 2009.
The T&T team will resume training on December 28 with several of the US College based players rejoining the squad later this month. They include striker Stephen Knox, midfielder Sean De Silva, goalkeeper Jesse Fullerton, Chike Sullivan and US-born player Bradley Welsh. Another US-born player Nicholas De Leon is also eligible of representing T&T. The young striker is the son of former T&T great Leroy De Leon. De Leon (N) is attached to the Cisco Football Club and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
National U-20 team manager Chris De Silva also mentioned that the door will remain open to players who can bring added value to the current team. He revealed too that past National U-17 players Robert Primus and Kevin Molino, both attached to Clico San Juan Jabloteh were not considered for recent selection because they started missing training sessions some months ago.
“These players have been invited but for some reason they had stopped coming to national team training sessions. I have met on more than one occasion with both Terry Fenwick and the coaches at Mucurapo. We will continue to keep the doors open to players prior to our final selection for the qualifiers in March,” De Silva told TTFF Media.
T&T are also carded to undergo a 10-day training camp in Sao Paolo, Brazil from January 15-25.
The eight-team CONCACAF Finals in March will qualify four teams for the U-20 World Cup in Egypt, September 25-October 16, 2009. Six teams already have qualified for the CONCACAF U-20s. Canada, Mexico and the United States will be joined by host T&T and Central American sides Costa Rica and El Salvador plus one other Caribbean representative.