Shaun Fuentes

For­mer T&T foot­ball cap­tain Dwight Yorke has en­dorsed UE­FA gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no, for the post of FI­FA pres­i­dent.

The ex-Man­ches­ter Unit­ed star and cur­rent T&T sports am­bas­sador was part of In­fan­ti­no's del­e­ga­tion that vis­it­ed St Kitts and Nevis late in Jan­u­ary as the FI­FA pres­i­den­tial can­di­date re­layed his plans. In­fan­ti­no al­so vis­it­ed Port-of-Spain to meet with Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent David John-Williams who has al­so ex­pressed his sup­port for the UE­FA Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary.

"We know that foot­ball has been in a bit of dif­fi­cul­ty with our head of gov­ern­ment, but we felt that with the ex­pe­ri­ence of Gi­an­ni, with his ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing sev­en years as Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, we felt that at this stage he was the right per­son to take foot­ball for­ward and that's why I'm here sup­port­ing his cause," Yorke said.

"I want­ed to see this part of the world is giv­en a fair crack and with Gi­an­ni's in­flu­ence and with his word of what he wants to achieve and giv­ing to the CON­CA­CAF re­gion is some­thing that I to­tal­ly sup­port­ed."

He al­so com­mend­ed In­fan­ti­no's ap­proach of hear­ing the views and con­cerns of cur­rent and for­mer play­ers.

"It's good that they want to hear from the play­ers' point of view on what can be im­proved in the re­gion, and that's where I come in be­cause I played along these lines for a num­ber of years be­fore I made it on­to the big scene, and if I can just par­tic­i­pate in some way of giv­ing my ex­per­tise in terms of what I think that foot­ball can im­prove with­in the Caribbean and the CON­CA­CAF re­gion then I think that's some­thing he's em­braced and he has lis­tened," he said.

In­fan­ti­no is one of five can­di­dates seek­ing to re­place Sepp Blat­ter as pres­i­dent of the world foot­ball gov­ern­ing body.

Jones out­shines Xavi

T&T's na­tion­al cap­tain Ken­wyne Jones out­shined ex-Barcelona and Spain leg­end Xavi as he led his Al Jazi­ra club to a 5�4 win on penal­ty kicks over Al Sadd, clinch­ing a place in the group stages of the Asian Cham­pi­ons League on Tues­day.

Xavi missed the first penal­ty in the shoot-out af­ter the tie fin­ished lev­el at 2�2 af­ter 120 min­utes of ac­tion.

Jones lev­elled the scores on the stroke of half time when he leapt high above the Sadd de­fence to head in a cross from the Brazil­ian Thi­a­go Neves. The T&T cap­tain then con­vert­ed dur­ing the shootout to lead Al Jazi­ra home.

Henk ten Cate, the Jazi­ra coach, praised his play­ers for their "nev­er say die" at­ti­tude.

"This was a good ad­ver­tise­ment for foot­ball in this coun­try," he said. "I have a lot of re­spect for this team. As I said at the pre-match con­fer­ence my be­lief was high.

"Jones scored a very im­por­tant goal for us to go in­to the break 1�1. We played bet­ter in the sec­ond half and could have scored a few more goals from the chances we cre­at­ed."

Jones was equal­ly elat­ed, say­ing, "It was a de­serv­ing win for us. The team has been im­prov­ing and to­day we showed good qual­i­ty and com­po­sure. I think it's an im­por­tant win for the club as it put us fur­ther on in the com­pe­ti­tion which is a big step."

Williams works with lo­cal

Verona coach­ing school

For­mer Na­tion­al play­er Bri­an Williams is cur­rent­ly one of the coach­es work­ing with the Hel­las Verona Coach­ing School in Palmiste, south Trinidad.

The school is af­fil­i­at­ed with the Ital­ian club Verona and is over­seen by Ital­ian-born foot­ball en­thu­si­ast Ste­fano Mon­ti.

Ac­cord­ing to Mon­ti, Hel­las Verona Palmiste Foot­ball School is "the first af­fil­i­at­ed Hel­las Verona FC school in the world, an in­ter­na­tion­al project aimed to ex­port the train­ing phi­los­o­phy of the Ital­ian club and its brand out of Italy.

"Bri­an works with W Con­nec­tion but he is al­so one of our coach­es. Our aim is to help de­vel­op lo­cal tal­ent and to teach the game to the kids and spread the Verona brand as well as see how we can ex­port our brand as well," Mon­ti said.

T&T Women join fi­nal

eight in Olympic quest

T&T se­nior women's team, Puer­to Ri­co, Guatemala and Guyana, ranked 108th, 76th, 48th and 89th in the world re­spec­tive­ly, have sig­nif­i­cant­ly less tour­na­ment ex­pe­ri­ence un­der their belts, as their stand­ings in the FI­FA/Co­ca-Co­la Women's World Rank­ing sug­gest. None of these four teams have ever com­pet­ed at the Olympics or FI­FA Women's World Cup. But T&T will def­i­nite­ly want to de­fy the odds as they be­gin the CON­CA­CAF fi­nal round to­day against Guatemala at the BB­VA Com­pass Sta­di­um in Hous­ton.

"We would like to start on a right note and take three points from here," head coach Richard Hood said. "Maybe we are not the favourites but we know we can com­pete an we will push on as hard as we can to ad­vance."

"Al­though reign­ing world cham­pi­ons and Olympic gold medal­ists USA and last sum­mer's FI­FA Women's World Cup hosts Cana­da will head in­to the com­pe­ti­tion as clear favourites on pa­per, new­ly-crowned FI­FA World Coach of the Year for Women's Foot­ball Jill El­lis be­lieves qual­i­fy­ing will not be a walk in the park.

"It's a tough group," she ex­plained in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with FI­FA.com. "The fact that on­ly two teams get out means there's no safe­ty net this year. We have to make sure we hit the ground run­ning.

"It's about mak­ing sure we fin­ish top of our group, then that se­mi-fi­nal is a crit­i­cal game," the USA coach con­tin­ued. "What I love about this team is that I think our ap­proach is that 'noth­ing's guar­an­teed'. We have to earn every­thing.

Mean­while, FI­FA Women's World Cup 2015 hosts Cana­da suf­fered a bit­ter quar­ter­fi­nal de­feat to end their dream of win­ning the game's most pres­ti­gious ti­tle on home turf. De­spite this dis­ap­point­ment, John Herd­man's at­ten­tion im­me­di­ate­ly turned to the Olympics–and he is brim­ming with con­fi­dence about his team's qual­i­fy­ing hopes.

"Right now we're in a po­si­tion to fo­cus on the up­com­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tion tour­na­ment and hope­ful­ly po­si­tion our­selves to de­fend our Olympic bronze medal this sum­mer in Rio," he said.

T&T will face Cana­da on Sun­day. The top two teams from the eight-team tour­na­ment will ad­vance to the Rio 2016 Olympics

ED­I­TOR'S NOTE: Shaun Fuentes is the Di­rec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions of the TTFA. Fol­low him - www.TTFoot­ball.org; Twit­ter @TTSo­caWar­riors; on Face­book, YouTube -TTFA or tntso­cawar­riors.