T&T's Under 20 Men's team will get close to an additional two weeks to prepare of the opening leg of the Caribbean Football Union Under-20 World Cup qualifying series in St Vincent and the Grenadines in just under a month's time. Initially T&T were slated to play their opening game on July 23 in St Vincent but the CFU later advised that due to several unforeseen circumstances, the CFU Secretariat upon the request of the host country has agreed to change the group matches schedule to August 6-13. The winner of the four preliminary groups and the best second placed team will advance to the final CFU round in Jamaica from November 3-11.
The Concacaf final round takes place in Puebla, Mexico from February 18 to March 2, 2013. The Caribbean will have five berths in the final 12-nation round from which four will qualify for the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Turkey. Mexico, Canada and USA are automatic qualifiers to the Concacaf final round. T&T head coach Michael McComie is currently preparing a local squad and believes his troops will be ready to grab one of the available qualifying spots in the Caribbean. "Ideally we would like to go into the tournament fully ready for the competition and though it appears to be extra time for us, it will not affect our programme as we are still going full stride ahead with our programme," McComie said. "As far as we were concerned we were preparing for our first game in early July and our players will remain focused on that target which is to have ourselves ready for international competition."
