A few changes have been made to the T&T Un­der-17 Women’s team, fol­low­ing last week­end’s 2-2 tie with host Cu­ra­cao in their open­ing match of the Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 Women’s World Cup Qual­i­fiers.

Though she was re­luc­tant to say what the changes are, coach Ayan­na Rus­sell said the ad­just­ments were nec­es­sary as they try to make amends against Bar­ba­dos in their sec­ond match in Group F at the Sta­dion Rig­naal Jean Fran­cis­ca from 7 pm on Wednes­day (Jan­u­ary 28). The re­sult left the T&T team with just a point, while their re­gion­al ri­val is point­less af­ter they were ham­mered 6-0 by El Sal­vador in their open­er on Mon­day (Jan­u­ary 26).

De­spite two pos­i­tive re­sults against the host in their two pre­vi­ous meet­ings, Rus­sell was not ex­pect­ing a drawn match, which saw them drop two key points. From the group, on­ly the top team ad­vances.

Rus­sell as­sured her charges are men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly ready for the Ba­jans, come tonight. “In terms of the ad­just­ments, there may be some mi­nor ad­just­ments for the game based on the re­sult need­ed. Def­i­nite­ly un­for­tu­nate to drop some points in the first game, so def­i­nite­ly con­fi­dent of mak­ing the ad­just­ments to en­sure that we get a bet­ter re­sult in the game ver­sus Bar­ba­dos. The team’s con­fi­dence is very high. They are build­ing chem­istry on and off the field, so that’s a plus, and they are ex­cit­ed and ready to go in­to to­mor­row’s game to get a vic­to­ry,” said Rus­sell.

The pair of Ja­da Jones and San­ni Wil­son pro­vid­ed the goals for the T&T team, which proved to be in­suf­fi­cient on the day. The young TT foot­ball princess­es will have to se­cure three points to­day to have a chance of seal­ing the top spot in the group. A vic­to­ry for them will put them in a must-win clash with El Sal­vador when the teams square off at the same venue on Feb­ru­ary 1.

Tonight’s en­counter will be on­ly the sec­ond time the teams have met in the U-17 World Cup Qual­i­fiers. T&T en­joys the up­per hand af­ter ham­mer­ing their re­gion­al ri­vals 7-1 in the 2016 edi­tion of the qual­i­fiers on No­vem­ber 16, 2015, play­ing in Group B of the Caribbean Pre­lim­i­nary Phase at Es­ta­dio Juan Ramón Loubriel in Bayamón (PUR).

Goals for T&T came from dou­ble strikes from Natisha John, Amaya El­lis, and Alex­is For­tune, with Nia Hon­ore get­ting the oth­er item. For the Ba­jans, Shaunte Car­ring­ton scored the lone item.

T&T Un­der-17 girls’ squad

​Goal­keep­ers: ​Saiya Smith (DPS­FC, USA), ​Alex­ia Dol­land (Pro Se­ries), ​Zofia Richards (Pro Se­ries)

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De­fend­ers: ​Jes­si­ca Nes­bitt (Pro Se­ries), ​Lay­la Gre­goire (Down­town Unit­ed Soc­cer Club, USA), ​Hac­k­eemar Goodridge (Trend­set­ter Hawks Acad­e­my), ​Alia Tou­s­saint (Pe­ters Fields Unit­ed), ​Mate­ja Leben (Pro Se­ries), ​Gyasi Lewis (Com­bine Ballerz)

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Mid­field­ers: ​Gi­an­na Changar (Unit­ed Fut­bol Acad­e­my, USA), ​Chelsea John (Pick­er­ing FC, Cana­da), ​Rori Git­tens (Club San­do), ​Jade Jones (FC Stars Blue, USA), ​Zye­sha Potts (Jew­els SC), ​Khloe Kir­ton (Pro Se­ries)

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At­tack­ers: ​San­ni Wil­son (Flori­da Unit­ed, USA), ​Giu­liana Mey­er (Philadel­phia Ukrain­ian Na­tion­als, USA), ​Shiyah Matthews (LA Surf, USA), ​Syd­ney Pol­lard (Pro Se­ries), ​To­rie Jean-Jacques (Pick­er­ing FC, Cana­da), ​She­ma­iah Tou­s­saint (Cox Foot­ball Acad­e­my)

Group F match­es

Venue: Sta­dion Rig­naal Fran­cis­ca, Willem­stad, Cu­ra­cao:

Jan­u­ary 24: T&T vs Cu­ra­cao, 7 pm

Jan­u­ary 26: Bar­ba­dos vs El Sal­vador, 7 pm

Jan­u­ary 28: T&T vs Bar­ba­dos, 7 pm

Jan­u­ary 30: Cu­ra­cao vs El Sal­vador, 7 pm

Feb­ru­ary 1: Sal­vador, 4 pm; Cu­ra­cao vs Bar­ba­dos, 7 pm