Jo Marie Lewis and her na­tion­al team­mates are fo­cussed on one thing and that is rep­re­sent­ing T&T to the fullest at the Fi­fa Un­der-17 Women's World Cup. The ju­nior women's team in­tends on do­ing the red, white and black proud and will open its ac­count against Chile on Sun­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo. The com­pe­ti­tion runs un­til Sep­tem­ber 25. Lewis along with the rest of the "So­ca Princess­es" will be hop­ing to ful­fil their own per­son­al am­bi­tions of play­ing in a World Cup and car­ry the hopes and as­pi­ra­tions of their loved ones. "We re­al­ly want to do this for the coun­try, for the young peo­ple and most­ly for the young girls and women of T&T. It's a huge ho­n­our for us to put on the red, white and black for this World Cup," Lewis said. She was dis­cov­ered while at the St Do­minic's Home in Bel­mont in 2005 by T&T se­nior team as­sis­tant coach Ja­maal Shabazz and U-17 team man­ag­er Jinelle James, who have since tak­en her un­der their wings and nur­tured her tal­ent.

Lewis is now one of the key fig­ures in the T&T unit that will fea­ture at the world event as the first Caribbean team to par­tic­i­pate at a Fi­fa Women's World Cup. "For me it is a re­al ho­n­our to play for the coun­try. And while I was grow­ing up in my com­mu­ni­ty it was a nice ex­pe­ri­ence be­cause I had some peo­ple close to me who were able to show me the dif­fer­ence be­tween right and wrong. "I've thought about be­ing a hair­dress­er but I re­alised that play­ing foot­ball was one of my tal­ents and that's what I de­cid­ed I want to do... foot­ball is my life," Lewis con­tin­ued. Fond­ly re­ferred to as "Jo-Jo" by her team­mates, the tricky strik­er is con­fi­dent that the "So­ca Princess­es" can over­come their chal­lenges in the tour­na­ment with fix­tures against Nige­ria and Ko­rea DPR al­so.

"We have worked very hard over the past few months. It was a lot of fun but al­so a lot of hard work. We want to en­joy this tour­na­ment but we al­so want to do well and make our coun­try proud of our achieve­ments ... that is what we are aim­ing for," Lewis added. Her team­mate mid­field­er Liana Hinds be­lieves that the team has to show­case the pos­si­bil­i­ties that are out there for women. "Foot­ball can show the world that women can be just as strong and suc­cess­ful as men and that if women are giv­en the chance then they too can be suc­cess­ful lead­ers once they work hard and put their minds to any­thing," said Hinds, who plays in Con­necti­cut, USA. Like Hinds, there are a num­ber of play­ers, who are ei­ther born or based over­seas with T&T parent­age in­clud­ing Schmidt, Em­ma Ab­dul, Rose Ba­hadurs­ingh, Jas­mine Samp­son, Di­ar­ra Sim­mons and Bri­an­na Ryce.

The oth­ers stem from com­mu­ni­ties from as far as Guayagua­yare.

Goal­keep­er Lin­fah Jones comes from Guayagua­yare, 15-year-old twin sis­ters Kha­didra and Kadisha Debe­sette and for­ward Camille Charles hail from La Brea, Jonelle War­rick is from Trinci­ty while Patrice Vin­cent and Kay­la Tay­lor are from San­ta Flo­ra. Shalette Alexan­der and goal­keep­er Keri My­ers, both live in Cara­pichaima while Re­han­na Omardeen and Anique Walk­er come from West­moor­ings. Head coach Even Pellerud and the en­tire T&T team con­tin­gent checked in­to the Crowne Plaza ho­tel at mid­day yes­ter­day where they will be based for the Group phase of the tour­na­ment.

The team had their first train­ing ses­sion at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um yes­ter­day evening since re­turn­ing from Fort Laud­erdale where they de­feat­ed Re­pub­lic of Ire­land 3-0 on Sat­ur­day. In re­lat­ed news, Re­pub­lic of Ire­land de­feat­ed New Zealand 2-1 in a friend­ly in Mi­a­mi on Tues­day. The young foot­ball Ferns were con­fi­dent of scalp­ing the Eu­ro­pean run­ners-up and looked on track when Evie Mil­lynn put New Zealand ahead in the 25th minute, but a Siob­han Killeen equalis­er be­fore half­time and a late win­ner from Re­bec­ca Kear­ney earned the Irish the spoils.