Shaun Fuentes

Bel­gium-based pro­fes­sion­al Shel­don Bateau will be look­ing to fin­ish his first full sea­son in Eu­rope on a high, when his KV Meche­len takes on Sport­ing Charleroi on Sat­ur­day with a chance to qual­i­fy for the Eu­ropa League at stake.

Meche­len drew 0-0 in the open­ing leg of the play-offs and should they win on the week­end, they would ad­vance to the fi­nal stage of the play-offs from which the win­ners will make it to the Eu­ropa League.

"This is an all-im­por­tant game for us on Sat­ur­day as a win puts us in­to the next round of the play-offs and then we'll be push­ing for a spot in the Eu­ropa League," Bateau said on Sun­day.

The for­mer San Juan Jabloteh play­er notched a dou­ble in Meche­len's 4-2 win over Waasland-Bev­eren on Sat­ur­day to help the club fin­ish the reg­u­lar sea­son in eighth spot.

"It was an amaz­ing feel­ing to score two goals and help the club in this po­si­tion. It was not just my first goal but a dou­ble and it turned out to be a spe­cial night for me," he added.

The for­mer na­tion­al un­der-23 and un­der-20 cap­tain said he has sur­prised him­self with his run of form this sea­son for Meche­len.

"I keep sur­pris­ing my­self and the club be­cause when they think they've seen my full po­ten­tial I have stepped up an­oth­er lev­el and it's all in my mind. Af­ter every game the fans ask if I'll be at this club next year be­cause they know the big­ger clubs are watch­ing but all I can do for now is to keep fo­cused and keep im­prov­ing my­self as well as help the club achieve more suc­cess," he said.

Cato's first­goal de­light

There's no feel­ing like that when you score a goal and there's cer­tain­ly noth­ing that com­pares to your first pro­fes­sion­al goal.

Ask Cordell Cato. The 20-year-old found the mark to help San Jose Earth­quakes to a 2-2 draw with Chivas USA in Ma­jor League Soc­cer ac­tion on the week­end.

"It was a feel­ing I've been miss­ing for a year now," Cato said.

His goal meant it was on­ly the sec­ond time San Jose scored more than a sin­gle goal in one match this sea­son.

"That was re­al­ly im­por­tant, be­cause the thing with us in a lot of games, the chances have been there but un­for­tu­nate­ly, whether it's a block or a miss, it hasn't been com­ing," Cato told MLSsoc­cer.com. "This is just a step for­ward, get­ting two goals in a game. Hope­ful­ly, go­ing for­ward, it's all go­ing to get bet­ter."

Lawrence looks­for Cup glo­ry

He nev­er had the chance to con­test an Eng­lish FA Cup fi­nal as a play­er, but ex-na­tion­al de­fend­er Den­nis Lawrence will get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take home some FA Cup sil­ver­ware as a coach when his Wigan Ath­let­ic takes on Man­ches­ter City in the grand fi­nal at Wem­b­ley on May 11.

Lawrence is in his third sea­son with Wigan as an as­sis­tant to head coach/man­ag­er Rober­to Mar­tinez. He is the first coach from the Caribbean to be in­volved in an Eng­lish FA Cup fi­nal. For­mer West Ham Unit­ed goal­keep­er Sha­ka His­lop, who has been on that stage be­fore, de­scribed Lawrence's ac­com­plish­ment "as some­thing to be very proud of."

"It's a great achieve­ment for some­one like Den­nis who is still rel­a­tive­ly young in the coach­ing busi­ness."

Mar­tinez in­sists that Wigan must avoid rel­e­ga­tion. They are in 18th spot with 32 points from 34 games, one match less than their fel­low rel­e­ga­tion strug­glers Queen's Park Rangers and As­ton Vil­la, tied on 25 points. Wigan has three league games left and trails New­cas­tle by five points but with a game in hand.

"If we (avoid rel­e­ga­tion) it will be an in­cred­i­ble achieve­ment to se­cure a ninth [con­sec­u­tive] sea­son in the Pre­mier League...If we don't, then reach­ing the Cup fi­nal will be­come an emp­ty achieve­ment," Mar­tinez said.

"Get­ting to the fi­nal is a his­toric mo­ment for this club and one we are proud of. But we can on­ly count this sea­son as a suc­cess if we stay in the Pre­mier League."

Tim Kee keeps plug­ging on

The next few weeks promise to be in­ter­est­ing for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion as ef­forts con­tin­ue to get the lo­cal gov­ern­ing body back on a lev­el of sta­bil­i­ty and re­spectabil­i­ty.

De­spite fi­nan­cial woes still be­ing an is­sue, pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee has been on a se­ries of meet­ings with of­fi­cials and stake­hold­ers both at home and abroad who have T&T's best in­ter­est at heart. Pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments are ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced in com­ing days and Tim Kee re­mains op­ti­mistic.

"It's been a long, ar­du­ous jour­ney thus far but we have cov­ered some good ground and there is some promis­ing de­vel­op­ments made along the way," Tim Kee said.

"The im­me­di­ate fo­cus is not just get­ting the se­nior men's team as best ready as pos­si­ble for the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup but we are work­ing around the clock on strength­en­ing our re­la­tion­ship with our stake­hold­ers and part­ners. And we are work­ing to­wards gain­ing back the trust of every­one con­cerned as well as im­prov­ing our im­age as we move for­ward in­to this new era of lo­cal foot­ball. It's not go­ing to come overnight but we are ful­ly com­mit­ted to­wards mak­ing it a re­al­i­ty."

Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for the TTFF/So­ca War­riors. Shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com