Shaun Fuentes

W Con­nec­tion de­fend­er Kern Cu­pid be­lieves that W Con­nec­tion and Cale­do­nia AIA's pas­sage to tonight's Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club (CFU) cham­pi­onship fi­nal is an in­di­ca­tion of this coun­try's po­ten­tial to re­turn as one of the dom­i­nant forces in re­gion­al foot­ball. That might be an am­bi­tious feel­ing but Cu­pid felt the hurt of T&T's dis­ap­point­ing ex­it at the 2010 Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup which saw the "So­ca War­riors" lose to Cu­ba and Grena­da,fail­ing to ad­vance to the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup. So it was def­i­nite­ly sat­is­fy­ing to play all 90 min­utes in such a con­vinc­ing win over Puer­to Ri­co Is­landers, one of the more recog­nised teams in­volved in the US Pro League cir­cuit. "I think we made a state­ment for T&T foot­ball with the two wins on Tues­day to make it two clubs from our coun­try ad­vanc­ing to the fi­nal," Cu­pid said. "It's been dis­ap­point­ing be­ing knocked out in the last Dig­i­cel Cup and then be­ing out of the World Cup qual­i­fiers but we showed that at least at club lev­el things are look­ing bet­ter and a fair amount of tal­ent from T&T is on dis­play. We dom­i­nat­ed and we won con­vinc­ing­ly.

"A show­ing of strong char­ac­ter and team spir­it was a key for both teams and I think the fi­nal on Thurs­day (to­day) is go­ing to be a re­al thriller be­cause both sets of play­ers are very ea­ger to make a good im­pres­sion and rep­re­sent the coun­try and the Caribbean well in the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League," Cu­pid added. Mid­field­er Clyde Leon, an­oth­er mem­ber of the 2010 se­nior na­tion­al team, felt that some pride is be­ing re­stored. "The na­tion­al team is al­ways the big pic­ture but if slow­ly we can make some pos­i­tive im­pact then we will get it right at the top lev­el al­so. I think the wins by both teams is a good sign for us. The play­ers are show­ing some lev­el of im­prove­ment and the de­sire is there to dom­i­nate and do well. It's al­so good for our play­ers to get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to come up against the oth­er play­ers in Con­ca­caf. The ex­po­sure will be im­por­tant for us," Leon said. Sev­er­al T&T in­ter­na­tion­als were in the mix in­clud­ing goal­keep­er Jan Michael Williams, Radan­fah Abu Bakr, Jo­evin Jones,Ja­mal Gay, Trevin Cae­sar and De­vorn Jorsling among oth­ers which is a good bit of news ahead of the com­mence­ment of train­ing of a pro­vi­sion­al T&T se­nior squad for the up­com­ing Caribbean Cup pre­lim­i­nar­ies. Con­nec­tion re­turns to the Cham­pi­ons League for the first time in three years while Cale­do­nia is there for the first time. The win­ner will join Group 4 with the Seat­tle Sounders and Marathon of Hon­duras, while the run­ner-up will be placed in Group 8 with Xe­la­ju of Guatemala and Mex­i­co's Chivas de Guadala­jara.

Bur­rell urges Ja­maica to build sta­di­ums like T&T

Ja­maican Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dent Cap­tain Ho­race Bur­rell has made a plea to the Ja­maican Gov­ern­ment to build four mi­ni sta­dia in that coun­try sim­i­lar to what ex­ist in T&T. Bur­rell was speak­ing at the Red Stripe Pre­mier League awards cer­e­mo­ny re­cent­ly where he is­sued the call to Prime Min­is­ter Por­tia Simp­son Miller to con­sid­er the build­ing of the sta­di­ums as part of the gov­ern­ment's Ja­maica Emer­gency Em­ploy­ment Pro­gramme (JEEP). "I am ap­peal­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter and sports min­is­ter, via min­is­ter with­out port­fo­lio in the min­istry of sports, Na­tal­ie Nei­ta-Headley, who is in at­ten­dance, for the in­cor­po­ra­tion of the build­ing of at least four mi­ni-sta­di­ums in the JEEP Pro­gramme," said Bur­rell.

"We could build some 10,000-seat venues that are sim­i­lar to the ones in T&T which have, over the years, al­lowed that coun­try to host ma­jor re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments. It would put peo­ple to work and it would be mon­ey well spent." Bur­rell said the mat­ter of play­ing sur­faces in the coun­try, say­ing this was lim­it­ing the full de­vel­op­ment of play­ers in Ja­maica. That coun­try is still in the race for 2014 World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion. The Man­ny Ramjohn Sta­di­um, one of the four sta­di­ums built in 2001 (for the FI­FA U-17 World Cup) that Bur­rell was re­fer­ring to is this week be­ing used to host the CFU Club Cham­pi­onship Fi­nals which pits lo­cal clubs Cale­do­nia AIA and W Con­nec­tion in the fi­nal.

Me­o­la: No­vem­ber 19 sticks out

For­mer Unit­ed States goal­keep­er Tony Me­o­la was one of four per­sons in­stalled in­to the US Na­tion­al Soc­cer Hall of Fame. Me­o­la stood in goal for the Amer­i­cans in that faith­ful No­vem­ber 19, 1989 World Cup qual­i­fi­er against this coun­try and to date re­mem­bers it as maybe the most in­flu­en­tial win in US Soc­cer his­to­ry. In an in­ter­view with the New York Times last week, Me­o­la made men­tion of it. "For sure that Trinidad game in '89 is the one that sticks out, for what it meant in the his­to­ry of the game and for what it still means to­day. But cer­tain­ly there's noth­ing like play­ing in a World Cup. If you had asked me as a kid, where are the places that you'd want to play in a World Cup, I'd say I'd want to play in Italy and in the US," Me­o­la said. Re­flect­ing on USA's open­ing 5-1 loss to Czech Re­pub­lic at Italia '90, he added: "It just showed how far we had to go. And now, you take that game, and it shows how far we've come."

Maylee nets in US Women's Pre­mier League

Na­tion­al women's foot­ballers Maylee At­tin-John­son and Kenya Cord­ner are cur­rent­ly play­ing their trade in the Unit­ed States for the Is­saquah Soc­cer Club in the Women's Pre­mier Soc­cer League. The club is off to a promis­ing start this sea­son, win­ning two of its first match­es. Many of the play­ers and staff come from di­verse ar­eas and age-groups. The club con­sists of three in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers; the ages of the team play­ers range be­tween 18 and 30. John­son net­ted her side's open­ing goal in first half of the match of their 2-0 win over Port­land Rain at Sky­line High School, ear­li­er this month. Is­saquah club di­rec­tor Jim­my Ball said he felt pas­sion­ate about what the team rep­re­sent­ed in the Is­saquah area.

"I just want the young girls of this area to see that in soc­cer you can play at every lev­el and have the op­por­tu­ni­ties to play at sta­di­ums full of peo­ple," he said.

Bir­chall ties the knot

Na­tion­al mid­field­er Chris Bir­chall re­turned to the Colum­bus Crew for train­ing a few days ago af­ter be­ing giv­en time off for his wed­ding in Eng­land. The for­mer Port Vale man got mar­ried to girl­friend Lucy and de­scribed the oc­ca­sion as splen­did.

"It was bril­liant," Bir­chall said. "It was the cul­mi­na­tion of every­thing com­ing to­geth­er. There were no mishaps and every­thing hap­pened ac­cord­ing to plan. It went fast like every­one said it would, but it was a great day." Bir­chall said the best part was when he and his bride, Lucy, were first in­tro­duced as "Mr and Mrs Bir­chall." "I had a lit­tle lump in my throat when I was do­ing a speech and had to say nice things about her," he s aid. "Over­all it was just a great oc­ca­sion and now it's back to the train­ing pitch and try­ing to achieve more suc­cess with the Crew."