Con­grat­u­la­tions to Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, the 2023 Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) cham­pi­ons! They won it with one round to spare, and they have done so with style and what I would la­bel to­tal foot­ball. When they at­tack, they at­tack with full force, and when they de­fend, they do so with all hands on deck. They seem to play to head coach Hut­son "Ba­ba" Charles’ plan, and they all give 150%.

Their vic­to­ry against Na­pari­ma Col­lege took me back to the 80s when the Fa­ti­ma team of that era ex­hib­it­ed a nev­er-say-die at­ti­tude. It has been the hall­mark of Fa­ti­ma teams, es­pe­cial­ly this present team when they again came back ear­li­er in the sea­son against an ex­cel­lent San Juan North Sec­ondary School with 10 men in the dy­ing stages of the match to win 5-2. They did the same thing last Sat­ur­day when trail­ing 1-0 vs Na­pari­ma Col­lege. They were be­ing out­played by a de­ter­mined op­po­nent, who quite clear­ly de­cid­ed that no team was go­ing to come on their ground and walk away with the ti­tle. They were hus­tled by a team that was faster to the ball and showed more in­ten­si­ty and dri­ve. It cer­tain­ly looked as if Na­pari­ma were the ones on the verge of win­ning the ti­tle. Then, go­ing down to 10 men and still trail­ing 1-0 all seemed lost for the boys from Mu­cu­rapo head­ing in­to added-on time at the end of the sec­ond half. How­ev­er, scor­ing 2 goals in those 10 min­utes not on­ly won the game but, most im­por­tant­ly, hand­ed them a tro­phy that has evad­ed them since 1978.

The achieve­ment by Fa­ti­ma Col­lege was even more re­mark­able, con­sid­er­ing the school was rel­e­gat­ed in 2018, and all seemed lost back then. They then bounced back with pro­mo­tion the fol­low­ing year; then, the pan­dem­ic struck the league for 2 years, and it ap­pears that all this time, the school was in­vest­ing in their stu­dents. Win­ning the Na­tion­al In­ter­col ti­tle last year, the school must have start­ed to feel the in­vest­ment was reap­ing some high re­turns. So, if last year was good, the feel­ing this year must be one of to­tal eu­pho­ria and com­plete sat­is­fac­tion.

The fi­nal round game was played against St Mary’s Col­lege, and what a cel­e­bra­tion it was. St Mary’s, as ex­pect­ed gave it their all to de­feat the new­ly crowned cham­pi­ons as the in­tense ri­val­ry be­tween these col­leges goes way back to when the Col­leges League was first start­ed by them­selves and Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege. No mat­ter what, both schools hate to lose to one an­oth­er. Some­how, for all the guts and de­ter­mi­na­tion from the home team, St Mary’s Col­lege, they couldn’t de­feat this tal­ent­ed Fa­ti­ma team.

The run­ners-up of this year’s SS­FL Pre­mier­ship the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons, St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, as they were at home to Mal­ick Sec­ondary in the fi­nal round. St Bene­dict’s start­ed slow­ly and got bet­ter as the sea­son pro­gressed. They have suf­fered from the loss of Tarik Lee and Nicholas Bob­come but still have some ex­cel­lent play­ers in Mala­cai Webb, Je­re­mi­ah Niles, and Josi­ah Ochoa, to name a few. De­fen­sive­ly, they are well or­gan­ised, and I ex­pect them to be very dan­ger­ous for the In­ter­col. Still, they must get past tricky games against Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do and Na­pari­ma Col­lege, both from the South zone, be­fore they can think of the Na­tion­al ti­tle.

San Juan North, at one time, looked as if they could win the ti­tle, but that shock de­feat at home to Fa­ti­ma seemed to have de­flat­ed their as­pi­ra­tions. How­ev­er, I ex­pect them to re-en­er­gize and come back to the In­ter­col all fired up. With the tal­ent­ed Lin­dell Sween and Nathan Quashie in their line­up, they should win the East Zone In­ter­col ti­tle even though the Ari­ma North Sec­ondary team would be tough.

I saw the Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege vs Na­pari­ma Col­lege game when they played to a goal­less draw. I like Pre­sen­ta­tion. They are a well-oiled team, and they are the on­ly team to beat Fa­ti­ma this sea­son with a 1-0 vic­to­ry away from home. They sur­pris­ing­ly lost 3-0 to St Bene­dict's but still have con­ced­ed few goals all sea­son, a tes­ta­ment to their sol­id de­fence. But if they can find a way to be more cre­ative and score goals, their chances to win the South Zone In­ter­col are as good as any­one.

Na­pari­ma sim­ply has to ex­hib­it the foot­ball they dis­played against Fa­ti­ma, and they could al­so win the South Zone In­ter­col ti­tle. The win­ner of this ti­tle is go­ing to have to work hard, and they would need more than just abil­i­ty but the right at­ti­tude.

Ari­ma North Sec­ondary could be a fly in the oint­ment. Like Pre­sen­ta­tion, they are good de­fen­sive­ly, not al­low­ing many goals in the back of their net this sea­son. They seem to be the on­ly team in the East to chal­lenge San Juan North and, on their day, can spring a sur­prise for the East Zone In­ter­col. Trin­i­ty Col­lege East was no match for the more es­tab­lished schools, and I can’t see them de­fend­ing their East Zone ti­tle suc­cess­ful­ly.

Fa­ti­ma will start as firm favourites for the North Zone ti­tle. They will have a host of schools try­ing to up­set them. St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, af­ter a slow start, did well in the league to fin­ish mid-ta­ble, and they should be bet­ter pre­pared for the In­ter­col. Mal­ick and East Mu­cu­rapo were far too in­con­sis­tent in their per­for­mances, and if they can come good on the day in the knock­out tour­na­ment, they may cre­ate a shock.

What can I say about St Mary’s and QRC, ex­cept they were dis­ap­point­ing? Both schools have to re­turn to the draw­ing board, re-look at their pro­grammes, and start work­ing at the Un­der-14 and Un­der-16 lev­els, which may be the on­ly way back for the tra­di­tion­al col­leges. Take a page out of not just Fa­ti­ma’s book but the South­ern col­leges’ books, as they are just about get­ting it right.

The bot­tom three - Ch­agua­nas North, Pleas­antville Sec­ondary, and Bish­op’s High School were sim­ply out­classed and need to un­der­stand what it takes to com­pete at this lev­el. It’s all about set­ting up the right pro­grams and stick­ing with a plan. It is not go­ing to be easy, and it will un­doubt­ed­ly take a lot of sac­ri­fice if these schools are to re­bound. Spey­side High School seems to be the best out of To­ba­go, but school foot­ball in To­ba­go is a far cry from the days of Dwight Yorke when he rep­re­sent­ed Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary. Hope­ful­ly, school foot­ball in To­ba­go in the next few years will start to take a turn for the bet­ter, as it is im­per­a­tive to have a To­ba­go school pre­sent­ing con­sis­tent chal­lenges against the best schools in Trinidad.

All in all, the league met ex­pec­ta­tions. I hope the schools place a lit­tle more time on de­vel­op­ing play­ers, es­pe­cial­ly those com­ing up in Un­der-14 and, to a less­er ex­tent, at the Un­der-16 lev­el, so the fans can see more qual­i­ty foot­ball. Well done to all the schools, and good luck in the up­com­ing In­ter­col.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.