Shari John

With the Fi­fa Un­der-17 Women's World Cup less than six months away, Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor of women's foot­ball in T&T, Even Pellerud, just wants his play­ers to play good foot­ball and prove that they are com­pet­i­tive in the U-17 Four Na­tion Tour­na­ment which be­gins to­day. In a bit of con­trast to the Nor­we­gian's usu­al phi­los­o­phy of 'op­ti­mism above all', Pellerud ex­plained, that at this stage he is not nec­es­sar­i­ly fo­cused on win­ning, but rather, cre­at­ing a good team. "We are very ex­cit­ed about the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play in­ter­na­tion­al games," said Pellerud. "It is ex­act­ly what we need to mea­sure where we stand at the mo­ment." Hav­ing al­ready ex­plained that it is nec­es­sary to lose on the road to suc­cess, Pellerud said he is not re­al­ly think­ing about beat­ing all the teams, but sees the tour­na­ment as an­oth­er step in the process of prepar­ing his team to be com­pet­i­tive and if pos­si­ble win the World Cup at the end of Sep­tem­ber.

The tour­na­ment will be played from this af­ter­noon to Sat­ur­day at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um and is be­ing host­ed by the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTFF). Ja­maica, Mex­i­co and Cana­da, the oth­er com­pet­ing coun­tries, all ar­rived on Fri­day evening. T&T will meet its re­gion­al coun­ter­parts, Ja­maica in its first match at 7.30 pm. Cana­da and Mex­i­co will kick off the tour­na­ment, two hours ear­li­er. The Ja­maican squad will be the on­ly side T&T will be rel­a­tive­ly un­fa­mil­iar with hav­ing met Mex­i­co last year in Mex­i­co in a cou­ple warm-up match­es, while Pellerud coached in Cana­da for nine years be­fore mov­ing to T&T. The tour­na­ment will al­so serve as valu­able prepa­ra­tion for Mex­i­co, Ja­maica and Cana­da which will head to the 2010 Con­ca­caf U-17 Women's World Cup Fi­nal Round Qual­i­fy­ing Cham­pi­onship in Cos­ta Ri­ca from March 10-20.

Three changes in women's U-17s

Trinidad and To­ba­go Un­der-17 foot­ball team coach Even Pellerud has made three changes to the squad which will fea­ture in the Four Na­tions Tour­na­ment here in Trinidad from Sun­day un­til March 5. De­fend­er Jami­la Der­rick and the mid­field pair of Shante Hel­wig and Liana Hinds will not be among the 25-mem­ber squad used by Pellerud in the round-robin tour­na­ment–they have been re­placed by strik­er Jo- Marie Lewis and the mid­field duo of Sido­nia Hoareau and Danielle Mc­Phun.

T&T team: Keri My­ers, Lin­fah Jones, Saun­dra Baron (goal­keep­ers); Khadisha Debe­sette, Camille Bor­neo, Re­hana Omardeen, An­nette Mims, Tineisha Co­hbam, Shalette Alexan­der, Patrice Vin­cent (de­fend­ers); Camille Charles, Kha­didra Debe­sette, Vic­to­ria Swift, Jes­si­ca De Leon, Kay­la Tay­lor, Di­ar­ra Sim­mons, Patrice Camp­bell, Sido­nia Hoareau, Danielle Mc­Phun (mid­field­ers); Kedisha Castil­lo, Bri­an­na Ryce, Anique Walk­er, Nykosi Sim­mons, Shaki­rah Sa­landy, Jo-Marie Lewis (strik­ers).

Tech­ni­cal Staff: Even Pellerud (coach), Richard Hood (as­sis­tant coach), Mar­ius Rovde (goal­keep­er coach), Glen­non Fon­cette (as­sis­tant goal­keep­er coach), Jinelle James (man­ag­er), Ri­car­da Nel­son (as­sis­tant man­ag­er), Chris Bai­ley (train­er), Nicole Kistow (physio), Claire George (equip­ment man­ag­er).