A T&T 22-man Under-20 squad arrived in Lanarca, Cyprus on Thursday night for an eight-day live-in training camp ahead of its arrival in Alexandria, Egypt, for the upcoming Fifa Under-20 World Championship. Head coach, Yoguslavian Zoran Vranes finalised the 22-man squad for the tournament this week during a camp in Antalya, Turkey, which meant that he had the difficult task of cutting three players from his squad for the tournament. Those three players � forward Trent Lougheed, defenders Jevon Morris and Nicholas Walker -were the unfortunate ones. They parted ways from the rest of the team in London yesterday, heading back to Port-of-Spain.
The U-20s are coming off a 4-0 win over Turkish club Antalyaspor on Tuesday. Goals by midfielder Khaleem Hyland, Uriah Bentick, Jamal Gay and Marcus Joseph did the job for the visitors. A couple days earlier, Gay also struck a double to lead T&T to another 4-0 win over Turkish club Surilaya FC with the other goals coming from Joseph and Marvin Manswell. T&T, captained by Leston Paul, will now look ahead to practice matches against Australia and United States in the coming days as both teams are also in Cyprus preparing for the World Championship. "It's never an easy task for a coach to say to a player that he has to be left out of the squad for a World Cup. It was not easy for any of us, as coach, staff members and players," Vranes said.
"Some of us even cried because we have been together for a long time, as a family and now they have to leave us because only 22 players can go to the tournament. But these are players who can still be part of the future of our football and I expect they will be back. "Every player worked hard and deserved the chance, some more than others. We have selected the best squad possible and so far the preparations have gone just as we wanted," Vranes added. T&T play its opening match against hosts Egypt on September 24 in Alexandria and the game will be aired live on TV 6.
