The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion is putting in the work and hopes to see the ben­e­fits of their labour.

Pres­i­dent Kieron Ed­wards, re­cent­ly ap­point­ed to a De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee of the sport’s world gov­ern­ing body, FI­FA, de­liv­ered a re­lease ex­plain­ing the work his ex­ec­u­tive has done to date, which ranges from the prepa­ra­tion of the coun­try’s Un­der-17 men’s team, which will face Pe­ru in two in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match­es on Jan­u­ary 28 and 30 in Li­ma, to the Un­der-17 women’s foot­ball team and the coun­try’s Un­der-20 team.

The un­der-17 women’s team played to a 2-2 tie with host Cu­ra­cao in Group F of the World Cup Qual­i­fi­er on Sat­ur­day and will next face Bar­ba­dos to­mor­row be­fore com­plet­ing the group stage on Feb­ru­ary 1 against El Sal­vador, with on­ly the top team pro­gress­ing.

Sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment was al­so made in the men’s un­der-20 team, which had suc­cess­ful re­sults against Grena­da and St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines in two friend­ly match­es last week.

Ed­wards told the me­dia, “The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion is en­cour­aged by the con­tin­ued progress and com­mit­ment be­ing demon­strat­ed across our na­tion­al youth pro­grams. We ex­tend our full sup­port and best wish­es to our Un­der-17 Women’s Na­tion­al Team as they con­tin­ue their Con­ca­caf qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign in Cu­raçao, fol­low­ing a de­ter­mined 2–2 draw against the host na­tion. That per­for­mance re­flects the re­silience, be­lief, and com­pet­i­tive char­ac­ter be­ing nur­tured with­in the group as they rep­re­sent the na­tion on a ma­jor re­gion­al stage.”

“We are equal­ly pleased with the pos­i­tive mo­men­tum emerg­ing from our men’s youth teams, with both the Un­der-17 and Un­der-20 squads show­ing steady im­prove­ment in their prepa­ra­tions, high­light­ed by a vic­to­ry over St. Vin­cent and a com­pet­i­tive draw against Grena­da. These per­for­mances are im­por­tant in­di­ca­tors of growth, con­fi­dence, and co­he­sion.

As our Un­der-17 Men pre­pare to trav­el to Pe­ru for two in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies, such ex­po­sure re­mains vi­tal to ac­cel­er­at­ing de­vel­op­ment and mea­sur­ing our­selves against strong op­po­si­tion.”

Ac­cord­ing to the lo­cal foot­ball boss, “This col­lec­tive progress is fur­ther sup­port­ed by on­go­ing in­vest­ment in our tech­ni­cal lead­er­ship, in­clud­ing Act­ing Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor Devin El­cock’s re­cent par­tic­i­pa­tion in the FI­FA Tech­ni­cal Lead­er­ship course in Bar­ba­dos, which strength­ens our long-term vi­sion for foot­ball de­vel­op­ment in T&T. To­geth­er, these ini­tia­tives un­der­score the As­so­ci­a­tion’s com­mit­ment to build­ing a re­silient and com­pet­i­tive foot­ball cul­ture, ground­ed in de­vel­op­ment, ed­u­ca­tion, and op­por­tu­ni­ty. By in­vest­ing in our young play­ers, pro­vid­ing mean­ing­ful in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure, and strength­en­ing our tech­ni­cal lead­er­ship, we are lay­ing a sol­id foun­da­tion for sus­tained suc­cess.”

Com­ing on the heels of the se­nior na­tion­al team’s fail­ure to qual­i­fy for this year’s World Cup to be held in Cana­da, the Unit­ed States, and Mex­i­co, the as­so­ci­a­tion is al­so set to em­bark on a com­pre­hen­sive pro­gram to en­sure the coun­try’s chances of reach­ing the World Cup are en­hanced.