Shaun Fuentes

Den­sill Theobald was 24 years old at the time and re­placed Chris Bir­chall at the half the last time this coun­try faced Pe­ru in a friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­al back in 2006.

The game was a farewell one for the Ger­many-bound "So­ca War­riors" at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um. Al­most sev­en years lat­er, Theobald is still in the T&T squad, at age 30, a lead­ing mid­field­er for the squad that is Gold Cup-bound.

"It's a re­al priv­i­lege for me to be in­volved still and hav­ing the strength and abil­i­ty by God's grace to rep­re­sent the coun­try," Theobald said.

"I was a stu­dent back then to play­ers like Rus­sell Lat­apy and Dwight Yorke and I still con­sid­er my­self a stu­dent of the game but with a bit more ex­pe­ri­ence and com­po­sure as an in­di­vid­ual on and off the field...Our foot­ball has been through try­ing times since then but we are re­cov­er­ing and we've worked re­al­ly hard to re­turn to the Gold Cup," added Theobald, who has been on tri­al in Turkey for the past two weeks. He is in the T&T squad to face Pe­ru next Wednes­day at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um from 8 pm.

"I hope every­body con­cerned, past and present play­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors could give the foot­ball a chance to re­cov­er with the right sup­port. The fu­ture of our foot­ball is in our hands at the mo­ment.

"This game ver­sus Pe­ru is a re­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant one. It will be a great test for us ahead of the Gold Cup,"

Stoke wants the'right mon­ey' for Jones

Stoke City boss Tony Pulis may al­low T&T strik­er Ken­wyne Jones to leave the Bri­tan­nia Sta­di­um if they get the "right mon­ey."

This was the word com­ing from Pulis on the week­end af­ter he re­ject­ed a bid from Swansea City for Jones, who has five goals in 19 games this sea­son.

"If some­one comes and of­fers the right mon­ey and Ken­wyne is of­fered the right mon­ey then we'll sit down and talk about it," he told BBC Ra­dio Stoke.

"If we can move a few out, we'll cer­tain­ly be look­ing to try to move a few in."

"That has not hap­pened yet–you have to deal with it (spec­u­la­tion)."

Pulis bought Trinidad & To­ba­go in­ter­na­tion­al Jones to the Bri­tan­nia Sta­di­um for a then club record fee of �8m in Au­gust 2010.

Pulis al­so re­it­er­at­ed his de­sire to bring in some new ad­di­tions, but be­lieves he needs to let some play­ers leave be­fore adding fresh faces.

Jones is sched­uled to ar­rive in Port-of-Spain on the week­end to line up for T&T in next Wednes­day's friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­al against Pe­ru at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um from 8 pm.

Scot­land wait­ing on right of­fer

For­mer De­fence Force for­ward Ja­son Scot­land is wait­ing for the right of­fer to come his way be­fore de­cid­ing where he will con­tin­ue his ca­reer in the Unit­ed King­dom.

Scot­land is on his way out of Ip­swich Town but there have been of­fers com­ing from Dundee Unit­ed and Barns­ley.

Barns­ley boss David Flit­croft con­firmed he has held talks with Scot­land, and the 33-year-old is al­so be­lieved to be at­tract­ing in­ter­est from Wolves and Don­cast­er.

"I'm just wait­ing to see what of­fers come in. I'm not putting any lim­its on what di­vi­sion or area I want to go–I just want to go some­where I can en­joy my foot­ball," said Scot­land.

"Every­one knows that I like to play with a smile on my face and I want to en­joy the twi­light of my ca­reer now and make the most of how­ev­er many games I've got left."

Bateau comes out on top­in Bel­gium play­er der­by

In the first ever T&T play­er der­by in the Bel­gium Pre­mier League, de­fend­er Shel­don Bateau came out on top over coun­try­man Khaleem Hy­land as his KV Meche­len de­feat­ed Rac­ing Genk 2-1 on Sat­ur­day.

Bateau re­cent­ly signed a two-year ex­ten­sion at Meche­len and ex­pressed his ex­cite­ment over meet­ing Hy­land on the pitch pri­or to the fix­ture.

Ghana­ian at­tack­er Ab­dul Yak­inu-Id­di rose to the oc­ca­sion as he scored a last-gasp win­ner for Meche­len. The Fet­teh Feyeno­ord Acad­e­my prod­uct left it late to snatch the max­i­mum points for Meche­len as he scored in the stop­page time.

Af­ter an open­ing 45 min­utes that failed to pro­duce goals at the Ar­gos Oil Sta­dion Achter de Kaz­erne, Dan­ish for­ward Nick­las Ped­er­sen grabbed the open­ing goal for Meche­len.

How­ev­er, Thomas Buf­fel lev­elled the score for the vis­i­tors who had Ghana mid­field­er Ben Ku­mordzi warm­ing the bench.

Both T&T play­ers picked up yel­low cards with Bateau be­ing cau­tioned in the 72nd and Hy­land in the 57th.

"It was a great win for us. I was very hap­py to have come away with three points. Of course it's dis­ap­point­ing for Khaleem to lose but that's foot­ball," Bateau said.

"Now we're both just try­ing to keep our game lev­el up and look­ing for­ward to head­ing home on the week­end to rep­re­sent our coun­try in the friend­ly ver­sus Pe­ru next Wednes­day," Bateau added.

Both play­ers are in the T&T squad for next Wednes­day's friend­ly ver­sus Pe­ru at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.

�2 Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for TTFF/ So­ca War­riors. Fol­low him on Twit­ter @Pro­Look2006