Ja­maica’s Reg­gae Girlz will be here to test the T&T se­nior women’s foot­ballers in two friend­ly match­es ahead of the Women’s World Cup Qual­i­fiers, which be­gin next month and will con­tin­ue in Feb­ru­ary and then April 2026.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Sun­day, the Vice Pres­i­dent of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, Jame­son Rigues, made the an­nounce­ment fol­low­ing the team’s start of of­fi­cial prepa­ra­tion for the qual­i­fiers un­der new coach An­gus Eve. The ses­sions were held last week­end (Sat­ur­day and Sun­day) at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma.

Rigues said arrange­ments for the match­es were made while the T&T se­nior men’s foot­ballers took on their re­gion­al coun­ter­parts, Ja­maica, in the World Cup qual­i­fi­er in Kingston and lost 2-0.

“While the men were on the field, we want­ed to make sure that the women were af­ford­ed the same treat­ment that the men’s team got for the qual­i­fiers,” Rigues said.

The Reg­gae Girlz are re­gard­ed as the top women’s team in the Caribbean.

In 2008, the team was dis­band­ed af­ter it failed to get out of the group stage of the Olympic qual­i­fy­ing, which no­tably fea­tured the Unit­ed States and Mex­i­co. The pro­gramme was restart­ed in 2014 af­ter a near­ly six-year hia­tus, fin­ish­ing sec­ond at the 2014 Women’s Caribbean Cup af­ter los­ing to T&T in the fi­nal 1-0.

In 2019, Ja­maica qual­i­fied for the FI­FA Women’s World Cup for the first time, but the team was elim­i­nat­ed af­ter los­ing all its match­es in the group stage. At the 2023 World Cup, the Ja­maicans made it to the Round of 16 for the first time, af­ter hold­ing both France and Brazil to goal­less draws. They al­so won their first-ever match at a World Cup against Pana­ma 1-0.

Rigues said the test by the Ja­maicans will be an ide­al test for the T&T women, which cur­rent­ly com­pris­es sev­er­al lo­cal play­ers and will be joined by the for­eign play­ers soon. T&T has been drawn in Group F of the Qual­i­fiers, along­side El Sal­vador, Hon­duras, and Bar­ba­dos.

The Women Cham­pi­onship will be played in No­vem­ber 2026 and will serve as the Con­fed­er­a­tion’s qual­i­fi­er for the FI­FA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027 and the 2028 LA Sum­mer Olympics.

The eight teams par­tic­i­pat­ing in the five-round di­rect elim­i­na­tion knock­out-style com­pe­ti­tion will in­clude the re­gion’s two top-ranked teams (Unit­ed States and Cana­da) and the six group win­ners of the 2025-2026 Con­ca­caf W Qual­i­fiers.

The com­pe­ti­tion will be­gin with the quar­ter-fi­nals, fol­lowed by a play-in, se­mi-fi­nals, third-place match, and fi­nal. To de­ter­mine the quar­ter­fi­nal pair­ings and each team’s path to the fi­nal, Con­ca­caf will rank teams 1-8, with the high­est-ranked team fac­ing the low­est-ranked team.

At the con­clu­sion of the Quar­ter­fi­nals, the four matchup win­ners will qual­i­fy for the Semi­fi­nals and guar­an­tee their place in the FI­FA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027, while the four losers will progress to a play-in, from which the 2 win­ning teams will each bat­tle for a spot in the FI­FA Women’s World Cup In­ter­con­ti­nen­tal Play-Off.

The Women Cham­pi­onship fi­nal­ists will al­so se­cure a berth in the 2028 LA Sum­mer Olympics Games Women’s Foot­ball Tour­na­ment. Should the Unit­ed States fin­ish as one of the two W Cham­pi­onship fi­nal­ists, then Con­ca­caf’s sec­ond berth will be award­ed to the com­pe­ti­tion’s third-place win­ner (based on the prece­dent of host na­tions’ au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion for pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Olympic Foot­ball Tour­na­ment at the Sum­mer Olympic Games).

Apart from Group F, the oth­er groups are:- Group A: Mex­i­co, Puer­to Ri­co, Saint Lu­cia, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Unit­ed States Vir­gin Is­lands; Group B: Ja­maica, Guyana, Nicaragua, Do­mini­ca, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da - Group C: Cos­ta Ri­ca, Guatemala, Bermu­da, Grena­da, Cay­man Is­lands

Group D: Haiti: Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Suri­name, Be­lize, and An­guil­la; and Group E: Pana­ma, Cu­ba, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Cu­ra­cao, and Aru­ba.

The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion ap­point­ed for­mer se­nior men’s team coach An­gus Eve as the head coach of the team along­side Den­sill Theobald. And on Fri­day, the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion al­so brought in for­mer play­er Maylee At­tin-John­son as the man­ag­er and Eng­lish-based Dami­an Brig­gs as an as­sis­tant coach to Eve.

Rigues said he and his ex­ec­u­tive are con­fi­dent that Eve can take the team to the World Cup. Say­ing they re­alise the need to ex­pose the play­ers to in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball, they’re bring­ing down the Ja­maicans to af­ford the play­ers some­thing for the com­ing FI­FA win­dow. He as­sured that oth­er friend­ly match­es will be planned for the team in the fu­ture.

T&T’s Train­ing squad:

Goal­keep­ers: Kimi­ka Forbes, Keri My­ers, Malai­ka Dedi­er, Tene­sha Palmer

De­fend­ers: Vic­to­ria Swift, Rhea Bel­grave, Chris­sy Mitchell, Nathi­fa Hack­shaw, Jade Bekai, Shau­nalee Govia, Tsai-Anne Fer­nan­dez, Tama­ra Smart, Kait­lyn Dar­went, Kani­ka Ro­driguez

Mid­field­ers: Asha James, Orielle Mar­tin, Chel­cy Ralph, Che­ri­na Steele, Naomie Guer­ra, Re­nee Mike.Karyn Forbes, Alex­cia Ali, Mari­ah Williams, Shurel­la Mendez, She­nieka Paul, Rashe­da Archer

For­wards: Ken­nya Cord­ner, Aaliyah Prince, Niki­ta Go­sine, Afiyah Corn­wall, Kay­la Prince, Tyeisha Grif­fith, J’eleisha Alexan­der, Jo­vanah Moreno, Syd­ney Pol­lard