Trinidad and To­ba­go's se­nior foot­ballers will be seek­ing to give Ot­to Pfis­ter his maid­en vic­to­ry as head coach of the "So­ca War­riors" in to­day's friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­al against In­dia at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um from 5 pm. Pfis­ter has been in charge of the T&T team for just over three months but will have his first com­pet­i­tive sur­vey at his tal­ent pool in a game sit­u­a­tion, eleven days be­fore T&T's open­ing 2014 World Cup qual­i­fi­er against Bermu­da at the Mu­cu­rapo venue. Like any coach, he wants to win his first match but has his sights on the big­ger en­coun­ters which nat­u­ral­ly are the match­es where points are at stake on the road to Brazil.

"Okay this match for us is just im­por­tant for the prepa­ra­tion of the team. I think it's a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for the boys to play. We have been train­ing for close to four months and I think every­body now is ready for a match and look­ing for­ward to play­ing," Pfis­ter said yes­ter­day. Pfis­ter held a light ses­sion at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um yes­ter­day morn­ing and the play­ers went on a late evening walk on the wa­ter­front close to Crowne Plaza Ho­tel. All lo­cal fans will be an­tic­i­pat­ing noth­ing but a win from T&T against a coun­try that has earned lit­tle recog­ni­tion through foot­ball but is as­pir­ing to­ward greater heights. "We know it's im­por­tant to win this match but there are oth­er things we have to pay at­ten­tion to," said W Con­nec­tion mid­field­er Hughton Hec­tor, who scored the win­ning goal in T&T's last in­ter­na­tion­al match against Mar­tinique last No­vem­ber.

"Al­so we haven't played in some time so the match it­self will show us ex­act­ly where we are at in terms of match readi­ness and how much we need to do again. Per­son­al­ly, I'm re­al­ly anx­ious to put on the na­tion­al shirt and go out there in front of the home crowd be­cause we end­ed the Dig­i­cel Cup on a win­ning note but we haven't played since then. So hav­ing scored the goal back then too I have been wait­ing anx­ious­ly for an­oth­er match." Joe Pub­lic goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip is one of the sea­soned cam­paign­ers around T&T na­tion­al teams, from hav­ing kept goal at the 2001 FI­FA Un­der 17 World Cup to lin­ing up dur­ing the 2010 World Cup qual­i­fiers. "The guys are ea­ger to play and we will not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ing the In­di­ans. This is a big game for us. We will be go­ing all out be­cause a good show­ing and a pos­i­tive re­sult are very im­por­tant at this stage. It will give us a good boost go­ing in­to the cam­paign," Phillip said.

Some of the new­com­ers in the T&T side in­clude Po­lice's Noel Williams, Cale­do­nia AIA's Mic­ah Lewis and Akim Arm­strong, and T&TEC goal­keep­er Aki­ni Adams. Vetean strik­er Stern John is mak­ing a re­turn to the team af­ter a two-year ab­sence caused main­ly by an in­jury while Dar­ryl Roberts, An­tho­ny Wolfe, An­dre Tou­s­saint, Akeem Adams, Kern Cu­pid, Hay­den Tin­to and Ke­ston Williams are among those who have ex­pe­ri­enced in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball in T&T colours. In­di­an head coach Ar­man­do Co­la­co is ex­pect­ing a tough out­ing. "We know this match will not be easy for us but we are look­ing to take every­thing we can from it. We didn't trav­el this far to come and be easy op­po­nents for T&T. We haven't seen too much of this team but we know that they played at the 2006 World Cup and they played well. For us we want to be for­mi­da­ble op­po­nents and try our best to get a good re­sult."

Top strik­er for the "Bhangra Boys" Sunil Chhetri says that foot­ball in In­dia is the biggest sport among the youth and the grass­roots lev­el. The All In­dia Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion was up to Sat­ur­day try­ing to make arrange­ments to have the game tele­vised live in In­dia but fans will def­i­nite­ly get to see the ac­tion de­layed and a live ra­dio broad­cast will be avail­able to them. There was al­so much buzz in that coun­try on Fri­day as it was an­nounced that Li­onel Mes­si will trav­el with Ar­genti­na to play a friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­al at the Salt Lake Sta­di­um in Kolkata on Sep­tem­ber 2. In­di­an cap­tain Cli­max Lawrence is ex­pect­ed to be the heart of their mid­field with Pune FC strik­er Je­je Lalpekhlua like­ly to be Chhetri's part­ner up front with the ex­pe­ri­enced Ma­hesh Gawli ex­pect­ed to mar­shal their de­fence along­side Gour­man­gi Singh.

"It's go­ing to be a great game for the both teams. We're re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to it," said Singh. "I know we will not have an easy time out on the pitch but we al­so don't in­tend to make it easy for Trinidad. They will have to earn it in front of their fans," Singh added. In three match­es played be­tween both coun­tries in June 1984, In­dia won the open­er 3-1 at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um with the hosts bounc­ing back to win the sec­ond and third games by a 3-0 mar­gin at Skin­ner Park and Ari­ma Velo­drome. Gates open at 2 pm and tick­ets will al­so be on sale at the venue from that time. Fans are re­mind­ed that there will be no park­ing in the Sta­di­um car park.

T&T:

Goal­keep­ers - Mar­vin Phillip, Aki­ni Adams.

De­fend­ers - Ke­ston Williams, Noel Williams, Kern Cu­pid, Akeem Adams, Seon Pow­ers, Car­lyle Mitchell

Mid­field­ers - Den­sill Theobald , An­tho­ny Wolfe, Mic­ah Lewis, Hay­den Tin­to, An­drei Pacheco, Akeil Guev­era, Hughton Hec­tor, Akim Arm­strong

For­wards – Stern John, Ju­ma Clarence, An­dre Tou­s­saint, Dar­ryl Roberts

In­dia: Goal­keep­ers - Sub­ra­ta Pal, Karan­jit Singh, Laxmikant Kat­ti­mani.

De­fend­ers – Ra­ju Gaik­wad, Gour­mangiS­ingh, Va­le­ri­ano Re­bel­lo, Ma­hesh­Gawli, Samir Naik, De­babrataRoy, Row­il­son Ro­drigues, Robert Lalthal­mua­na.

Mid­fielfders – Rahim Nabi, Cli­max Lawrence, Steven Dias, Lal­rindi­ka Ralte, Pe­ter Car­val­ho, Clif­ford Mi­ran­da, Ro­cus Lamare, Mehtab Ho­sain.

For­wards - Je­je Lalpeklua, Sunil Chhetri, S Sabeeth, Sushil Singh.