Na­tion­al de­fend­er Radan­fah Abu Bakr might walk in­to a lo­cal su­per­mar­ket in Port-of-Spain and de­spite his im­pos­ing fig­ure, stand­ing at six feet, four inch­es, he may hard­ly have heads turn­ing. But thou­sands of miles away in Ust-Ka­menogrosk, Kaza­khstan, it's a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent pic­ture for the for­mer Cale­do­nia AIA play­er.

Walk­ing through the streets of Tallinn last week­end while on du­ty with the na­tion­al team, Abu Bakr and some of his team-mates were an ob­vi­ous at­trac­tion to the lo­cals. Sev­er­al want­ed to meet him and quite a few al­so want­ed pho­tos. Abu Bakr says he ex­pe­ri­ences that every time he steps out in Ust-Ka­menogrosk where he plays for FC Vos­tok.

Ust-Ka­menogorsk, with a pop­u­la­tion of just over 300,000 is the ad­min­is­tra­tive cen­tre of the East Kaza­khstan Province of Kaza­khstan.

"The lo­cals are friend­ly and seem to be in­trigued more than any thing else by for­eign­ers like my­self and my team­mates from Guyana, Gam­bia and Sene­gal," Abu Bakr said.

"The bold­face stares from the lo­cals are some­times un­com­fort­able but there's noth­ing ma­li­cious be­hind them, and we've be­come ac­cus­tomed to it. We all set aside time for pho­tos when we're out in pub­lic. As long as one per­son breaks the ice, the re­quests just keep com­ing and they swarm us, like if we in the su­per­mar­ket or lo­cal store, for in­stance."

Abu Bakr's game has pro­gressed since he last played for T&T back in 2009. He knows there is stiff com­pe­ti­tion for the cen­tre­back po­si­tion in the T&T side with Seon Pow­er, Car­lyle Mitchell and Daneil Cyrus al­so be­ing con­tenders.

"I've ma­tured as a play­er and per­son since my last T&T ap­pear­ance in 2009. Among oth­er things, my tem­pera­ment ver­sus op­po­nents and in at­mos­pheres like the ones we faced in these two games in Bucharest and Tallinn has got­ten bet­ter."

Com­ment­ing on the foot­ball in Kaza­khstan, the for­mer Queen's Roy­al Col­lege stu­dent said: "The league is pret­ty de­cent. A few teams are fair­ly ro­bust and di­rect, but every­one tries to play at­trac­tive foot­ball. We're a mod­est team and have been punch­ing above our weight all sea­son. We're good at home and cur­rent­ly mid-ta­ble, climb­ing af­ter a rough start."

Webb says Con­ca­caf heal­ing process on point

Con­ca­caf pres­i­dent Jef­frey Webb said the heal­ing of the con­fed­er­a­tion in the wake of its re­cent scan­dals is pro­gress­ing apace.

Speak­ing in the Cay­man Is­lands re­cent­ly, Webb said the worst was be­hind the con­fed­er­a­tion. Webb re­cent­ly held a meet­ing with T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Shel­don Phillips on some of the con­fed­er­a­tion's ini­tia­tives for the way for­ward.

"I think we are well on our way. I think def­i­nite­ly the worst is be­hind us and I be­lieve that we have cre­at­ed a trans­paren­cy and a clar­i­ty that our re­gion and the mem­ber­ship need­ed so bad­ly. I be­lieve that we are poised for great­ness in the fu­ture," he said.

The in­fer­no that swept through foot­ball af­ter the scan­dal was so dev­as­tat­ing that FI­FA has spent the time since re­pair­ing the im­age of the game, while Con­ca­caf and the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) have im­ple­ment­ed sweep­ing safe­guards and over­sight mech­a­nisms to pre­vent a re­peat.

"We have recog­nised that with what we have been through we have to re­build our im­age and cred­i­bil­i­ty, al­so our brand­ing of Caribbean foot­ball as every mem­ber's as­so­ci­a­tion has been af­fect­ed by what tran­spired over the past two years, so we have launched a mar­ket­ing and re­brand­ing cam­paign so that na­tion­al as­so­ci­a­tions can repo­si­tion and re-in­vent them­selves back in­to the fold of Caribbean foot­ball," added Webb.

Both Con­ca­caf and CFU, in try­ing to achieve trans­paren­cy and good gov­er­nance, have set nu­mer­ous com­mit­tees for bet­ter man­age­ment of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

U-15 tour­na­ment set for Cay­man Is­lands

TTFA tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor An­ton Corneal is over­see­ing the prepa­ra­tion of a na­tion­al un­der-15 men's team for the in­au­gur­al Con­ca­caf U-15 cham­pi­onship in the Cay­man Is­lands from Au­gust 14-25. Screen­ing ses­sions for play­ers be­gun tak­ing place in the lo­cal re­gion­al as­so­ci­a­tions some weeks ago.

Twen­ty-two na­tions from across the re­gion will par­tic­i­pate in the tour­na­ment, an ini­tia­tive of Webb with a view to­wards strength­en­ing the game at the youth lev­els among all of the con­fed­er­a­tion's mem­bers.

"We are proud to host such an im­pres­sive num­ber of our mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions for this in­au­gur­al U-15 tour­na­ment, which will give the con­fed­er­a­tion's younger stars the chance to demon­strate their tal­ents on a larg­er pan-re­gion­al stage," said Webb.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing teams in the event come from across the Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, and in­clude Aru­ba, Ba­hamas, Be­lize, Bermu­da, Cay­man Is­lands, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, El Sal­vador, Grena­da, Guade­loupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Hon­duras, Ja­maica, Mar­tinique, Puer­to Ri­co, St Kitts, St Lu­cia, St Mar­tin, St Maarten, St Vin­cent and the US Vir­gin Is­lands.

The com­pe­ti­tion will take place in three venues on Grand Cay­man, with teams set to be di­vid­ed in­to var­i­ous groups.

Mitchell back on track for Gold Cup

There was good news for the T&T se­nior team on Wednes­day with re­ports that cen­tral de­fend­er Car­lyle Mitchell has re­cov­ered from an an­kle sprain and is like­ly to re­turn to ac­tion for MLS club Van­cou­ver White­caps.

Mitchell missed T&T's two match­es against Ro­ma­nia and Es­to­nia last week but is now set to be ready for the up­com­ing train­ing camp with the na­tion­al team ahead of the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup next month in the Unit­ed States.

"I'm pret­ty ex­cit­ed, you know...just try­ing to do what's best for the team," Mitchell said af­ter prac­tice on Tues­day at UBC.

White­caps head coach Mar­tin Ren­nie seems to be ex­cit­ed over hav­ing Mitchell re­turn to his team from FC Ed­mon­ton.

"I've watched (Mitchell's) games with Ed­mon­ton and he's done very well," said Ren­nie. "He's very good in the air, a pow­er­ful play­er. The rea­son we've been get­ting him games with Ed­mon­ton is so if this sit­u­a­tion aris­es, we have a play­er who is match fit and ready to play."

Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for So­ca War­riors/TTFF.

shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com

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