National Under-20 women’s coach Jamaal Shabazz is ’past hope’ that Trinidad and Tobago’s Under-17 ’Soca Princesses’ will perform admirably when this country hosts the 2010 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup from September 5-25.
He believes they will pleasantly surprise the home crowd.
And Shabazz is keen to change the culture of the women’s game in Trinidad and Tobago, which he says makes them lack the intensity of the bigger CONCACAF nations like USA and Mexico.
And with the programme recently introduced by women’s football director and Under-17 head coach Even Pellerud that will see the young women train year-round, Shabazz is seeing better days ahead for the team.
’I think the Under-17 team will surprise a lot of people with the quality of players...the intensity they will bring,’ Shabazz told the Sunday Express on Friday. ’I’ve gone past hope. I think they will do well.’
Shabazz reflected that the performance by the national Under-20 team at last week’s CONCACAF Under-20 Women’s World Cup qualifiers in Guatemala lacked the battling attitude and fitness required to consistently compete at that level.
He explained that they need more intense preparation, with strength and conditioning training, and technical and tactical development.
In the aftermath of the T&T Under-20’s failed campaign-which included 2-1 and 4-0 losses to Mexico and USA, respectively, and a 1-0 win over Jamaica-Shabazz was not satisfied with his team’s performance.
’I thought we could have done much better, because when you look at where Costa Rica reached,’ Shabazz pointed out, ’the semis, and we had two warm-up matches against Costa Rica, we lost 2-1 and drew 0-0, and you look at the moments in both the Mexico and US game, we had very good moments. I think if we had been a lot fitter, things would have been better for us in this tournament.’
He felt his charges could have shown more fight as well.
’Another factor was commitment to battles, the overall commitment of players from Mexico and the US has become year-round. Our girls football is still a seasonal thing. When the club season is out, they get out of shape.’
He termed getting them into shape again ’laborious’, saying that they need to keep their fitness up in order to become competitive with, and eventually beat the bigger teams.
’I think we just didn’t have the fitness and the quality to keep it against Mexico. In a lot of instances, we gave up a lot of easy chances, moments when we could have been much more aggressive and combative; we didn’t give that kind of bite in their tackles.
’It was just like we were holding on for our lives. We were fit to play Caribbean teams, but the players now understand that CONCACAF level demands a year-round commitment,’ said Shabazz.
He added: ’It’s not just a question of fitness, it’s a question of changing the culture of women in sport.’
Despite his observations, Shabazz was also encouraged by T&T’s better moments in Guatemala.
’In the first half alone we were in the US penalty box five times alone. Natasha St Louis outran the Mexican defender on several occasions. So you could see that we have the ingredients to be able to go toe-to-toe with CONCACAF teams, but there is still a lot of work needed.’