Jan-Michael Williams set to retire from football

“I think I am call­ing it a day,” Williams said yes­ter­day while ap­pear­ing on the Jug­gle foot­ball show on Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed’s Slam 100.5fm. “I have played for the na­tion­al team for 14 or 15 years but I think from the be­gin­ning of next year I am re­tir­ing from not on­ly in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball with the na­tion­al team but from com­pet­i­tive foot­ball on the whole.”

Williams, 35, has ac­cu­mu­lat­ed a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence rep­re­sent­ing sev­er­al clubs in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Hun­gary, Hon­duras, Guatemala and Cana­da and has been a se­nior in­ter­na­tion­al for T&T since 2003 when he was hand­ed his de­but at age of 18 by then-coach Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er in a friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­al against Venezuela.

His 81st and fi­nal ap­pear­ance for the na­tion­al team came in Sep­tem­ber 2017, start­ing in goal as T&T were de­feat­ed 2-1 by Hon­duras in a World Cup qual­i­fi­er at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va.

Most re­cent­ly, Williams played a to­tal of 15 match­es for Hal­i­fax Wan­der­ers FC in the in­au­gur­al Cana­di­an Pre­mier League. Hal­i­fax is coached by for­mer So­ca War­riors man­ag­er Stephen Hart.

A re­cent­ly pub­lished ar­ti­cle in a Cana­di­an news­pa­per re­vealed that while Wan­der­ers were not in­clined to re-sign the vet­er­an and use up one of their lim­it­ed in­ter­na­tion­al ros­ter spots, Wan­der­ers founder and pres­i­dent Derek Mar­tin was con­sid­er­ing bring­ing Williams back as a mem­ber of the coach­ing staff.

Williams al­so rep­re­sent­ed T&T 22 times at youth lev­el, spread across the na­tion­al un­der-17 and un­der-20 teams and he al­so rep­re­sent­ed the na­tion­al un­der-23 team nu­mer­ous times. Williams starred dur­ing this coun­try’s host­ing of the 2001 FI­FA Un­der-17 World Cup but was an un­used sub­sti­tute in all of T&T’s three match­es at that tour­na­ment.

When asked about his next move on the Jug­gle show yes­ter­day, Williams re­vealed that Hal­i­fax “would have some an­nounce­ments to make” with­in the com­ing week.

He al­so stat­ed his de­sire to go in­to a coach­ing ca­reer up­on his com­pet­i­tive re­tire­ment.

“I have had a de­cent ca­reer, I think it could have been bet­ter but it’s time to start giv­ing back now. I am look­ing more to­wards the coach­ing as­pect of things,” he said.

SOURCE: T&T Guardian