Stern John, the T&T Under 17 coach has finalised part of his technical staff ahead of the CONCACAF U-17 Men’s Championship and World Cup qualifiers from May 1 at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, by selecting former national captain Kenwyne Jones as his assistant.
John was named head coach by the T&T Football Association more than a week ago and apart from demanding that parents of players seek permission to attend training sessions, he also chose his own staff members, some of whom also include Caleb De Souza as his second assistant coach, Ross Russell as his goalkeeper coach, Devin Elcock as his equipment manager and Aaron Pollard as the team manager.
The rest of his staff will be named this week.
Both Pollard and Elcock were members of the Under 17 team back in 2016/2018. Jones, now 34, who has played professionally at the highest level in the United Kingdom and the United States, recently joined the fray of coaching when he was chosen by Nigel Grovsnor, his former coach St Anthony's College, as an assistant coach for Queen's Royal College in the Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL).
John said he is satisfied with the personnel who will work alongside him in preparing the team in the best possible way.
“We had our first couple of sessions at the weekend and it was important that we hit the ground running because we don’t have a lot of time. But at the same time I believe we have a group of very capable individuals who will serve on the technical staff to ensure the team is prepared in the best possible way for the competition in May,” John explained.
“Everyone understands his role and responsibilities. The football association is on board with us and with the right level of support, I am optimistic that we can go about the preparation in a most professional manner to get the boys up to scratch so we can go to Florida and compete in May. We’ve already seen several groups of players and our intention is to also stage a combine in the United States later this month to have a look at the talent that is available to us out there. We will release more concrete details on that before the end of this week,” John added.
T&T earned automatic qualification into the Championship round which will serve as a World Cup qualifier for the 2019 FIFA Under 17 Men’s World Cup in Peru. T&T is in Group E alongside champs Mexico, Jamaica and Bermuda. John’s Men will begin against Bermuda on May 1, before taking on Jamaica two days later (May 3) and Mexico May 5.
The 2019 edition of the Under-17 Championship will begin with the first round from March 16-24 in (Groups A and C) and April 1-9 with (Groups B and D). The final championship, groups E, F, G, H and knockout stage, will take place May 1-16.
After round-robin play, the top three finishers in each group will qualify for the knockout stage, joining the four group winners of the Qualification Stage in the Round of 16. The knockout stage of the competition will be played in its entirety in a single match elimination format, with the semifinalists automatically qualifying for the FIFA U-17 World Cup Peru.