“We’re go­ing to give it every­thing we have.” This is the as­sur­ance giv­en by na­tion­al un­der-20 foot­ball coach Mar­vin Gor­don ahead of Wednes­day's af­ter­noon’s clash with host Cos­ta Ri­ca in Group E of the Con­ca­caf Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onships at the Cos­ta Ri­can Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion Field in Ala­juela.

The T&T/Cos­ta Ri­ca en­counter will be­gin at 4 pm and will fol­low the first match be­tween Bermu­da and Bar­ba­dos at 1 pm. On­ly three out of the four teams are ca­pa­ble of cap­tur­ing the top spot in the group. For the Mar­vin Gor­don-coached team, which is on sev­en points, a win will be need­ed to progress as the win­ner of the group; how­ev­er, a draw will be suf­fi­cient for the host, as they can progress on goal dif­fer­ence.

In the case of Bermu­da, not on­ly would they have to win, but they would al­so have to hope that the T&T/Cos­ta Ri­ca game ends in a tie.

The T&T men ran ram­pant over Sint Maarten on Mon­day, ham­mer­ing them 4-0 in a match that should have end­ed in a much wider mar­gin of vic­to­ry. It sent the T&T men to sev­en points and in a com­pet­i­tive po­si­tion, fol­low­ing a dis­ap­point­ing 2-2 tie with Bermu­da in their open­ing match.

How­ev­er, with the Cos­ta Ri­cans al­so hav­ing to share the points with Bermu­da on Mon­day from a 3-3 stale­mate, the door is now wide open for any­one to slip through. Gor­don, soon af­ter his team’s vic­to­ry, told the me­dia that his team is still in with a chance.

“It’s a great feel­ing to be in this po­si­tion on the last day of the tour­na­ment, with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to still qual­i­fy for the cham­pi­onship round. I think the boys have been great in their at­ti­tude and their ap­proach. My phi­los­o­phy in ro­tat­ing the squad is that I be­lieve in the 21 play­ers that I brought to this tour­na­ment, and I saw it fit to­day to rest some key play­ers who are go­ing to the game on Wednes­day, who I think will have to go all the way on Wednes­day,” Gor­don said.

“Again, it’s just a great feel­ing for this group of play­ers to rep­re­sent the coun­try and to be out here and do­ing what we’re do­ing, and I’ll say we’re giv­ing our­selves an op­por­tu­ni­ty on the last day that we could still qual­i­fy out of this group. That was al­ways the ob­jec­tive. So we’re still in it.”

“We still be­lieve, and we con­tin­ue to work hard. One day to re­cov­er and go at it again. We’ll meet with the staff tonight af­ter din­ner on the best pos­si­ble 11-man ap­proach. You know, we saw Cos­ta Ri­ca play to­day against Bermu­da, right there. So, at the end of the day, we’re go­ing to go and give it every sin­gle thing we have on Wednes­day. We know we need to win.”

“This is some­thing I knew from day one com­ing in­to this tour­na­ment, that ba­si­cal­ly we’re go­ing to have to beat Cos­ta Ri­ca to qual­i­fy. You know, we’re still in it, we be­lieve, and again, we’re go­ing to give it every­thing we have,” Gor­don said.

T&T’s stroll that put them in a po­si­tion to qual­i­fy al­so com­prised an im­pres­sive 5-1 drub­bing of Bar­ba­dos in their sec­ond game. Gor­don’s men may feel com­fort­ably ca­pa­ble of a pos­i­tive re­sult this af­ter­noon af­ter the Cos­ta Ri­cans drew with Bermu­da.

T&T TEAM

1 Bryan Gafiuk (gk), 2 Je­re­my Mel­oney, 4 Adam Pierre, 7 Malachi Webb, 8 Josi­ah Ochoa, 11 Chaz Williams, 13 Lyshaun Mor­ris, 15 Jadon Mc Shine, 16 Jaden Chan Tack, 17 Do­minic Joseph, 19 Josi­ah Kallicha­ran

Subs

18 Jadon-Paul Alexan­der, 21 Sylvon Theophilus, 3 Sheri­dan Mc­Nish, 5 Jay­don Ca­pri­et­ta, 6 Ca­den Tre­strail, 9 Phillip Nel­son, 10 Dar­rel Gar­cia, 12 Col­in Xavier Joseph, 14 Ta­lan Mc Mil­lan, Gio­van­ni Hospedales

Cur­rent Group E stand­ings

Pos*Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

1. Cos­ta Ri­ca*3*2*1*0*18*3*7

2. T&T*3*2*1*0*11*3*7

3. Bermu­da*3*1*2*0*7*4*5

4. Bar­ba­dos*3*0*1*2*2*9*1

5. Sint Maarten*4*0*1*3*1*19*1