Technical Director of the national women’s football teams Jamaal Shabazz has called for a stronger local women’s league, as a means of enhancing the talent pool.
"The league in Trinidad is in need of a lot of structuring, a lot of help and once we can get the girls playing for a longer period in the year, they’ll be all right," Shabazz emphasised.
"But one of the key factors of having a strong national (team) is having a strong women’s league," he said.
Shabazz, who also serves as coach of Caledonia AIA/Fire, returned home recently from Guatemala, where he was a participant in an Advanced Level Coaching Course for national women’s football coaches in the Caribbean as well as North, Central and South America.
Drawing a reference to Costa Rica, he said: "They have 12 provinces, each having a league of 12 teams, that’s 144 teams.
"When you look at our league, we don’t even have eight decent teams. They play their league in such a way that it lasts six to seven months. Our league barely goes two months," he continued.
Shabazz added: "The infrastructure of those clubs, in those leagues, they have an Under-19 team, they have an Under-15 team. Our club teams can barely put together a senior team. So the quality of the national team reflects on your league.
"And the league has got to play a greater part in developing the players," Shabazz said. "Too many players come to the national team and we have to teach them some of the basic stuff.
"In my new role as Director for Women’s Football, part of my job is to prepare coaches to becoming national coaches," he noted.
"But part of my job is to develop a league that could truly produce a higher standard of football in the women’s game."
Shabazz pinpointed current assistant team coaches Marlon Charles and Izler Browne "as two of the coaches most ready to take over the rein.
"They’ve been in the programme and they understand what we’ve tried to develop over the years and (we) can clearly see some continuity," Shabazz added.
Shabazz is currently with the national youth squad in St Lucia, who are competing in a four-team Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Under-20 World Championship qualifiers. St Vincent and Grenada are the other teams in the round-robin contest.
Commenting on the squad, Shabazz said: "I think we’re very pleased with the way in which our sessions went.
"We were able to send some of these Under-20 girls with the senior team to a 10-day camp in Indiana," he continued. "So we have a squad of 18 players, half of them have gotten a good bit of exposure and the other half are really new to international football. So it’s a good blend."
Describing the team as a talented one, Shabazz also highlighted the fact that five Tobagonians — sisters Kimika and Karyn Forbes, Joseann Boyce, Kennya Cordner and Candice Edwards — are included in the 18, "which is a first in the women’s game."
"(In the past) I spoke about the Tobago players and now it’s starting to bear fruit," Shabazz stated.
When asked about the improvement of the players in the sister isle, he responded: "I think the coaches in Tobago did a lot of work and the fact that in Tobago there are so many leagues, almost year-round. The girls play more (there) than the girls in Trinidad."