Reign­ing Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League cham­pi­on and four-time win­ner W Con­nec­tion will come up against Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl hold­er De­fence Force for the Dig­i­cel Char­i­ty Shield in a clash to kick off the 2012/2013 sea­son at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la to­day from 5pm. The Dig­i­cel Char­i­ty Shield project falls un­der the T&T Pro League's com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme, HOPE (Help­ing Oth­ers is a Pri­or­i­ty Every­day), which was ini­ti­at­ed to build re­la­tion­ships be­tween the teams and the com­mu­ni­ties which they rep­re­sent. The win­ner of the Char­i­ty Shield will have $10,000 do­nat­ed to a se­lect­ed char­i­ta­ble cause with­in that Club's com­mu­ni­ty, while part pro­ceeds gen­er­at­ed from the gate re­ceipts will go to­wards in­tro­duc­ing the "Read to Rise" Pri­ma­ry Lit­er­a­cy Pro­gramme to a school with­in their com­mu­ni­ty as well.

De­light­ed by the con­cept, W Con­nec­tion hunts a bar­gain in win­ning to­day's match while prepar­ing for its re­main­ing Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League Group Eight match­es away to Guatemala's Xe­la­ju on Sep­tem­ber 18 and at home to Guadala­jara Chivas on Sep­tem­ber 26. "We are tak­ing part in the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons' League and the re­sults have been up and down," ex­plained the "Savonet­ta Boys" as­sis­tant coach and for­mer strik­er Earl Jean. "So play­ing against De­fence Force right now is very im­por­tant for us be­cause we need match readi­ness. We need games right now be­cause the sea­son hasn't start­ed yet. It is im­por­tant for us to get some games be­fore we go and play our next (CCL) game against Xe­la­ju."

On the oth­er­hand, De­fence Force coach Ross Rus­sell says he is aim­ing high af­ter boast­ing a tro­phy per sea­son over the last three cam­paigns since tak­ing charge of the sol­diers in 2009. Rus­sell, in his de­but sea­son, guid­ed the sol­diers to the First Cit­i­zens Cup and fol­lowed up bril­liant­ly in 2010-2011 win­ning the Dig­i­cel Pro League Cham­pi­onship thanks to a record ten-match win­ning streak tak­ing the first round by storm. Now with a full com­ple­ment of play­ers in­clud­ing the re­turn of strik­er Jorsling and a full pre-sea­son, Rus­sell says he fan­cies "three or four" ti­tles. "I'm send­ing the warn­ing right now," voiced Rus­sell. "We are not just fo­cus­ing on the League. We will be fo­cus­ing on all the (knock­out ti­tles) and we are com­ing to ex­cite the crowds."