Shaun Fuentes

For­mer na­tion­al great Leroy De Leon, not one known for minc­ing his words in the past, found rea­son to com­pli­ment the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) for some of its de­vel­op­ment work when he at­tend­ed the re­cent Youth foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty clin­ic in Point Fortin on the week­end.

De Leon, a past stand­out play­er for the na­tion­al men's team as well as Wash­ing­ton Darts in the North Amer­i­can Soc­cer League, feels that the ef­forts be­ing made by the lo­cal gov­ern­ing body could bear fruit in the fu­ture.

"I've seen some good things hap­pen­ing. These kind of clin­ics are im­por­tant and I know it takes ef­fort. I see Chevro­let as the spon­sor and I must say thanks to them and the pres­i­dent Ray­mond Tim Kee for fol­low­ing through with these ini­tia­tives. I see a lot of good things hap­pen­ing and hope­ful­ly this can bring us some re­ward in the fu­ture," he said.

De Leon, now at­tached to Point Fortin Civic Cen­tre's Pro League out­fit, said he would be will­ing to as­sist the de­vel­op­ment of the game.

"I don't want to be in­volved with the na­tion­al se­nior team but if any­one's lis­ten­ing, I am def­i­nite­ly avail­able to of­fer my sup­port in what­ev­er area pos­si­ble. I see Mr Hart do­ing some good things with the team and I'm hap­py about that but I want to see our foot­ball con­tin­ue to grow and I'll be hap­py to as­sist wher­ev­er I can."

De Leon said, though, he was not ac­cept­ing ex­cus­es.

"Some­times I lis­ten to the com­ments made by the coach­es af­ter some of these games and I don't like what I hear. I wish I could have them all in a fo­rum to dis­cuss a few things. When we don't play well and we lose there must be rea­sons for that and not ex­cus­es. I look back at the women's team re­cent­ly where they lost 7-3 af­ter be­ing ahead and then I heard ex­cus­es about fit­ness. That should nev­er be the case. You can­not go in­to a tour­na­ment and then say you were not fit enough to fin­ish a game on top.

"But gen­er­al­ly I am glad to see some good things hap­pen­ing and I hope it con­tin­ues so in a few years we can look back and see what's hap­pen­ing to­day as some­thing that con­tributed to some­thing suc­cess­ful," said the ex-St Bene­dict's Col­lege man.

Wal­cott joins Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­si­ty

For­mer na­tion­al Un­der-17 men's play­er Mani Wal­cott has joined Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­si­ty in the Unit­ed States.

Wal­cott joins three oth­er play­ers who have been signed by head coach Richard Nut­tall in­clud­ing Dy­lan Klein (West­bury, New York/Car­le Place High School), mid­field­er/full­back Jon Fras­er (Fleet­wood, Eng­land/Fleet­wood), and goal­keep­er Thomas Ger­mano (Rockville Cen­ter/South­side High School) as they get set to be­gin their aca­d­e­m­ic and ath­let­ic ca­reers.

Mid­field­er Wal­cott played four sea­sons of var­si­ty soc­cer for Eleanor Roo­sevelt High School in Green­belt, Mary­land and al­so played for the Bal­ti­more Bays Chelsea U-16 De­vel­op­ment Acad­e­my for two sea­sons. The US Soc­cer De­vel­op­ment Acad­e­my de­scribed his on-field char­ac­ter­is­tics as pos­sess­ing "ex­cel­lent tech­ni­cal skills" while play­ing an "at­tack­ing" style.

"We're ex­cit­ed to bring these stu­dent-ath­letes in­to the pro­gramme," Nut­tall said. "They are all tal­ent­ed in­di­vid­u­als who have a great soc­cer IQ and will boost our team's ath­leti­cism. I'm look­ing for­ward to see­ing their con­tri­bu­tions."

Mitchell nets in Van­cou­ver­p­re­sea­son game

Na­tion­al de­fend­er Car­lyle Mitchell found the net for Van­cou­ver White­caps last week but it was not enough to save them from los­ing 2-1 to Seat­tle Sounders in their MLS pre­sea­son clash at the Ki­no Sports Com­plex.

Down 2-0, Mitchell brought the 'Caps' to with­in one goal af­ter head­ing in a Nico­las Mezqui­da cor­ner in the 78th minute.

Van­cou­ver near­ly equalised mo­ments lat­er, when Uruguayan mid­field­er Se­bastien Fer­nan­dez re­leased Dar­ren Mat­tocks in­to the Sounders 18-yard-box, but the Ja­maican's left-foot­ed ef­fort trick­led just wide of the post as White­caps FC's come­back bid fell just short.

T&T's Keon Daniel made a sec­ond half ap­pear­ance for Philadel­phia Union in their 2-1 loss to Thier­ry Hen­ry's New York Red Bulls last Wednes­day.

Phillips to in­tro­duce goal­keep­ing ma­chine to T&T

For­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er Lin­coln Phillips is in Trinidad at the mo­ment and will stage a goal­keep­ing course dur­ing which he in­tends to in­tro­duce the Mule � a goal­keep­ing train­ing ma­chine.

Phillips is cur­rent­ly us­ing the piece of equip­ment at his train­ing camps in the Unit­ed States and ex­pects it will add a dif­fer­ent di­men­sion to goal­keep­ing train­ing lo­cal­ly.

"It's a ma­chine that will lift the lev­el of train­ing for our lo­cal goal­keep­ers. It can help with im­prove­ments in weeks or months once used cor­rect­ly and con­sis­tent­ly and I'm very ex­cit­ed about see­ing what it can do for our 'keep­ers," Phillips said.

The Mule, used with the Eu­ro­pean Train­ing Method de­vel­oped by George Mi­hal­je­vic, is used by teams in the Eng­lish Pre­mier League and oth­er clubs world­wide. It can give play­ers con­sis­tent­ly ac­cu­rate and re­al­is­tic de­liv­ery of any type of balls, on the ground and in the air, Chips, Dri­ven balls, and even bend­ing balls, are all eas­i­ly and ac­cu­rate­ly de­liv­ered to play­ers time af­ter time, and at dis­tances of up to 50 yards.

Shaun Fuentes is the di­rec­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com