T&T Un­der-17 men’s foot­ball team coach Shawn Coop­er will be hop­ing for an im­proved dis­play when his team faces Ja­maica in the sec­ond and fi­nal warm-up match at the St Eliz­a­beth Tech­ni­cal High School in San­ta Cruz, St Eliz­a­beth, Ja­maica from 5 pm (T&T time) on Tues­day.

Both teams are us­ing the match as part of their prepa­ra­tions for the 20-team Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 Cham­pi­onship which kicks off in Guatemala on Sat­ur­day, (Feb­ru­ary 11) un­til Feb­ru­ary, 26.

On Sat­ur­day last, at the Ar­nett Gar­dens Sta­di­um, the Mer­ron Gor­don-coached Ja­maica eked out a 1-0 win cour­tesy of a 77th-minute Orane Wat­son goal, af­ter he re­placed Nicholas Sim­monds who missed a first-half penal­ty.

De­spite the young 'Reg­gae Boyz' 1-0 win in reg­u­la­tion time both teams al­so con­test­ed a penal­ty shootout, which Ja­maica won 4-2.

And speak­ing af­ter the match, Coop­er said the out­come was not too bad and was some­thing his team can build on.

"I think we need­ed to put a lit­tle more num­bers go­ing for­ward and get the lines a lit­tle tighter, but we will work on what we have to for the next match.

For the match, Coop­er was with­out the ser­vices of the trio of Je­re­mi­ah Cateau (Con­corde Fire/USA),

Rio Car­dines (Crys­tal Palace/Eng­land), and Do­minic Wil­son (Nashville FC Acad­e­my/USA) while 14-year-old Seth Hadeed was among the un­used sub­sti­tutes.

Com­ment­ing on Car­dines, Coop­er said, "He had some pass­port is­sues, but it was ironed out and he will be here for the next game.

"Def­i­nite­ly, he (Car­dines) would have in­flu­enced us go­ing for­ward, but what I re­al­ly want­ed is for all the guys to get in some game time at this lev­el and feel what an in­ter­na­tion­al game is like, and there is no bet­ter team than a Ja­maica youth team we can play which will pre­pare us def­i­nite­ly go­ing in­to our three match­es in the Con­ca­caf tour­na­ment."

With re­gards to Hadeed who trav­elled as a re­serve, Coop­er stat­ed, "Seth (Hadeed), on the oth­er hand, is on­ly 14 years with a bright fu­ture ahead of him, but I just want­ed the old­er guys to get some game time be­cause I think this is ide­al prepa­ra­tion for us."

Speak­ing in the Ja­maica Glean­er, the young "Reg­gae Boyz' coach Gor­don said his team hit their marks in their win over and he was sat­is­fied with what the boys dis­played through­out.

“I think, had we scored that penal­ty, it would have been much eas­i­er. But I am proud of the boys. This is the first time they are play­ing against their age group. We are just go­ing to tight­en up things and move on,” Gor­don said.

“I think, de­fen­sive­ly we were good, but in the lat­ter stages of the game, we sat back too far. But play­ing with your home crowd, you want­ed to hold on to the win,” Gor­don as­sessed.

Fol­low­ing to­day's match, the T&T squad will de­part for Guatemala on Jan­u­ary 9 ahead of its open­ing Group F match against Cana­da on Feb­ru­ary 11 at the Es­ta­dio Pen­sati­vo in An­tigua, Guatemala at 6 pm while USA and Bar­ba­dos, the two oth­er teams in the group clash from 9 pm.

The young “So­ca War­riors” then face the USA in the sec­ond match on Feb­ru­ary 13 at the Es­ta­dio Pen­sati­vo from 9 pm, three hours af­ter Cana­da tack­les Bar­ba­dos be­fore clos­ing out their round-robin group cam­paign against the “Ba­jans” on Feb­ru­ary 15 from 6 pm, with USA and Cana­da fac­ing off at 9 pm.

Groups H which is made up of Hon­duras, Haiti, El Sal­vador, and Suri­name will al­so be played at the Es­ta­dio Pen­sati­vo in An­tigua while Group E which com­pris­es de­fend­ing cham­pi­on and eight-time win­ners Mex­i­co, Pana­ma, host Guatemala, and Cu­ra­cao, and Group G fea­tur­ing Cos­ta Ri­ca, Ja­maica, Guade­loupe, and Cu­ba will be based at the Es­ta­dio Na­cional Doro­teo Gua­much Flo­res in Guatemala City.

Af­ter the group stage, the top three na­tions in each group will ad­vance to the knock­out stage, join­ing the four 2022 Con­ca­caf U-17 Men’s Qual­i­fiers (CU17Q) group win­ners: Bermu­da, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Nicaragua, and Puer­to Ri­co.

The round-of-16 match­es will take place on Feb­ru­ary 18, and 19, at both venues, fol­lowed by the quar­ter­fi­nals on Feb­ru­ary 21, and 22 with the semi­fi­nals set for Feb­ru­ary 24, and the fi­nals on Feb­ru­ary 26 in Guatemala City.

All knock­out stage match­es will be played in a sin­gle-match di­rect elim­i­na­tion for­mat, and the four semi­fi­nal­ists will qual­i­fy for the FI­FA U-17 World Cup Pe­ru 2023.

T&T team against Ja­maica on Sat­ur­day: (4-2-3-1): 20 Ailan Pan­ton (GK); 4 Ay­don Caruth, 6 Joshua Fi­garo, 12 Jaden Williams, 19 Lyshaun Mor­ris; 14 Tau Lam­see, 5 Josi­ah Ochoa (cap­tain); 16 Der­rel Gar­cia, 15 Michael Chaves (vice-cap­tain), 2 Je­re­mi­ah Niles; 13 Lin­dell Sween.

Subs: 1 Jaden Ot­t­ley (GK), 8 Samuel Dun­can, 9 Tyrell Moore, 10 Malachi Webb, 17 Vaughn Clement, 18 Ar­mani Rowe, 21 Seth Hadeed.

Un­avail­able: Je­re­mi­ah Cateau, Rio Car­dines, Do­minic Wil­son.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Shawn Coop­er (head coach), Mar­vin Gor­don (as­sis­tant coach), Devin El­cock (as­sis­tant coach), Gilbert Bateau (train­er), De­clan Squires (goal­keep­er), John Jer­ry (equip­ment man­ag­er), Michael Tay­lor (medic), Chris­to Gou­veia (man­ag­er).

Ja­maica U-17 squad:

Tawayne Lynch (goal­keep­er), Joshua Grant (goal­keep­er), Ahir Dixon, Alex­avier Good­en, Ma­lik Robin­son, Adri­an Reid, Malachi Moli­na, Nashon Bolt Bar­rett, Bran­don Bent, Ronal­do Bar­rett, Ja­son Whyte, Jah­mani Bell, Orane Wat­son, Dyl­lan John, Dust­ing Co­hen, Nicholas Sim­monds, Adri­an Ma­honey, Ash­ton Gor­don, Ever­ald Swa­by, Jor­dan Mon­gatal.