Shaun Fuentes

Bel­gium-based mid­field­er Khaleem Hy­land has summed up 2012 as a rea­son­ably de­cent year for him in the Eu­ro­pean pro­fes­sion­al cir­cuit and has set his sights on pro­duc­ing the goods on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage for this coun­try at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in Ju­ly.

Hy­land made eight Eu­ropa League ap­pear­ances in 2012 for Rac­ing Genk, help­ing them to top spot in the pre­lim­i­nary group which pushed them through to the Round of 32 where they will meet Stuttgart on Feb­ru­ary 14 and 21. Genk drew 0-0 with FC Basel last month to con­firm their Group G top fin­ish. As it turns out, once Genk progress be­yond the Round of 32 they will take on the win­ner of the Monchenglad­bach/Lazio tie.

"I think 2012 was a pret­ty good year for me and Genk. We did great in the Eu­ropa League and al­so in the Bel­gium League we have been en­joy­ing a good run. I still feel we can do bet­ter in the Bel­gium League though and we'll be aim­ing to come a lot bet­ter in 2013.

Hy­land said he was not let­ting any dis­trac­tions get in his way but main­tained that he still holds am­bi­tions to play at the high­est lev­el in Eu­rope.

"I have un­til 2016 on con­tract with Genk. For now, I am fo­cus­ing on play­ing for Genk but if oth­er teams show up in­ter­est­ed I will con­sid­er be­cause I have am­bi­tions to play at the high­est lev­el in Eu­rope. So far I have played in the Eu­ropa and Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­ons League with Genk and I'm pret­ty hap­py with hav­ing done that.

Hy­land hopes to be on show­case with T&T at the Gold Cup in Ju­ly.

"I am al­ways hap­py and will­ing to put on the colours of my coun­try but it's up to the coach­es to make that call. They are in charge and they have the last say. I think it's great that the na­tion­al team made it to the Gold Cup. I was very hap­py to see the boys fight and come through af­ter play­ing in some tough con­di­tions through­out the Caribbean Cup cam­paign," he added.

'Cali' snaps up An­tigua duo

Two An­tigua & Bar­bu­da play­ers caught the eye of na­tion­al co-head coach Ja­maal Shabazz and have been signed by lo­cal club Cale­do­nia AIA ac­cord­ing to the An­tigua Ob­serv­er.

De­fend­er Akeem Thomas and Elvis Thomas, who both lined up for Asot's Ar­cade Parham in the im­mo­bile An­tigua Pre­mier Di­vi­sion, have signed two-year con­tracts with Cale­do­nia. Both play­ers ar­rived in Trinidad on Sun­day while strik­er Pe­ter By­ers was re­port­ed to be on his way to join­ing Cen­tral FC. By­ers has played be­fore un­der new Cen­tral head coach Ter­ry Fen­wick when he was at Jabloteh FC.

"It's al­ways a great feel­ing when you are go­ing abroad to play so at the mo­ment I am very hap­py to be go­ing and even though it is Trinidad I am go­ing where I used to be a top strik­er," By­ers said.

Cale­do­nia has al­so re­ceived in­ter­est from Eu­rope for play­ers such as Den­sill Theobald, Ataullah Guer­ra and Ja­mal Gay who left these shores on Tues­day for tri­als in Turkey and Bel­gium.

Car­los still hap­py de­spite con­tract con­fu­sion

It seems Ip­swich Town wants Car­los Ed­wards to go be­yond his du­ties in or­der to earn a 12-month con­tract ex­ten­sion at the end of the sea­son.

The 34-year-old for­mer De­fence Force mid­field­er said he un­der­stands that he must play a cer­tain num­ber of games this sea­son in or­der to have a chance of stay­ing at Ip­swich where he is now cap­tain.

"I think it's 30-odd games," he told BBC Ra­dio Suf­folk. "But I'm not sure if it's my op­tion or the club's op­tion.

"It's con­fus­ing. Hope­ful­ly, it can be re­solved soon­er rather than lat­er. I'm en­joy­ing my foot­ball and hope­ful­ly I can be here next sea­son."

It is un­der­stood that the op­tion to ex­tend the deal lies in the club's favour even though Ed­wards has had 27 ap­pear­ances this sea­son.

Mick Mc­Carthy has pre­ferred to used Ed­wards in a wide mid­field role, rather than at right-back. "I'm hap­py with my form," he said. "There's still a lot more I can do. I don't know why I'm hold­ing back but I'm fair­ly pleased with the way I'm go­ing about things and hope I can get bet­ter as the sea­son goes on. Maybe I need to chip in with a few goals. It's a part of my game that's been miss­ing the last 18 months or so. I hope a goal can come soon­er or lat­er."

Yorke re­calls 'rock star' treat­ment

He may no longer be wear­ing the Man­ches­ter Unit­ed shirt on the field of play along­side Javier Her­nan­dez and Wayne Rooney but Dwight Yorke is still very much part of the club's set-up and re­cent­ly de­scribed his ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing the first team's tour to Aus­tralia launch. He likened the re­cep­tion giv­en to Unit­ed play­ers to that of fa­mous mu­sic and movie stars as he re­called his time as a play­er. Yorke is cur­rent­ly one of the club's am­bas­sadors and spokesper­sons at in­ter­na­tion­al events.

Speak­ing as a Unit­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Syd­ney launch of the club's tour last month, he said "Asia, in par­tic­u­lar, is just amaz­ing. You talk about rock star treat­ment, well, that's ex­act­ly what we get when we ar­rive; there are even fans wait­ing on the tar­mac at the air­port. See­ing the amount of peo­ple there to greet us and their pure ex­cite­ment is just amaz­ing. Not on­ly do the sup­port­ers come to watch the games, we get 25,000 peo­ple watch­ing us train and a few thou­sand wait­ing out­side the ho­tel."

Unit­ed will play in Aus­tralia in a pre­sea­son tour in Ju­ly.

Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for TTFF/So­ca War­riors. Fol­low him on Twit­ter @ Pro­Look2006