Technical Director of Women’s Football in T&T, Even Pellerud, made it clear yesterday that T&T will not be entering the Fifa U-17 Women’s World Cup just to participate.
He made the statement at a press conference to launch the U-17 Women’s Four Nation Tournament at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain.
According to the Norwegian, who transformed the Canadian women national team to one of the football powerhouses in Concacaf, explained that T&T will be in it to win.
“The U-17s will not only be there to participate, we will be there to win,” said Pellerud. “When September ends, and people tell us, well you didn’t win any games, but you played well’, that will make me very unhappy, that is to me the opposite of why we are here. We are here to win games.
We are not here to hear that we played well, because that is a recreational attitude, that is not a winning attitude.”
The U-17 coach boasted that his local players who have been training on a consistent basis together for the past year, are super fit, and even though they may have started to play at a late age, he is very optimistic.
He also explained that in order to win when the World Cup comes, his team must learn to lose, and learn from its mistakes. “To me it’s not enough to be in a World Cup, we are there to score goals and win games.
But for us to do that, we need to learn to win, and in order to win, you have to learn to lose as well on the road and that’s where this tournament plays such a major role in our preparations,” said Pellerud.
“Some coaches and politicians will be afraid of staging games because they will ask are you ready, but how will you know if you are ready if you don’t compete in major tournaments?
That is the only way to learn this game.” Twenty-five players have been chosen for a pre-tournament camp and Pellurud explained that the team, which will compete in the tournament, will be the strongest that T&T has fielded so far.
T&T SQUAD
Keri Myers, Saundra Baron, Khadisha Debesette, Camille Borneo, Rehana Omardeen, Annette Mims, Tineisha Cobham, Shalette Alexander, Patrice Vincent, Jamila Derrick, Shante Helwig, Camille Charles, Khadidra Bebesette, Victoria Swift, Jessica De Leon, Kayla Taylor, Liana Hinds, Patrice Campbell, Kedisha Castillo, Brianna Ryce, Anique Walker, Nykosi Simmons, Diarra Simmons, Shakirah Salandy.
Even Pellerud (coach), Jinelle James (manager), Richard Hood (assistant coach).