There is still a be­lief in a qual­i­fy­ing berth from Group E of the Con­ca­caf Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onships for T&T.

Fol­low­ing Tues­day’s 2-2 draw with Bermu­da in the open­ing match, na­tion­al coach Mar­vin Gor­don is ac­cept­ing full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for a re­sult that many felt should have gone in T&T’s favour. T&T now faces an up­hill task to qual­i­fy for the lone top spot that will emerge from the group.

Much like the coun­try’s Un­der-17 foot­ball team un­der coach Ran­dolph Boyce, which fin­ished third in the group, Gor­don’s men cre­at­ed chances but failed to con­vert. He had on­ly apolo­gies for the re­sult Wednes­day.

“First thing, I take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the per­for­mance in the game. Yeah, I take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. I think, you know, we had too many play­ers who weren’t hav­ing good games. I think we cre­at­ed some chances that we didn’t take, but all in all, I cred­it the boys. When we made the changes, the fight came back, and we went 2-1 up. I thought we shouldn’t have giv­en any­thing away in the end, but that is how it is. We live to fight an­oth­er day, and we’re still in it.”

Mar­vin Gor­don’s charges now face the chal­lenge of hav­ing to win all their re­main­ing match­es if they are to top the group.

They face Bar­ba­dos at 1 pm this af­ter­noon on Field #2 of the Cos­ta Ri­can Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion Grounds in Ala­juela. The San Juan Jabloteh coach ad­mit­ted that he in­tends to stay pos­i­tive for this match and asks his charges to give it their all. “We be­lieve we can achieve some­thing good over here. And go­ing in­to the next game (Bar­ba­dos), it’s all about be­ing pos­i­tive.”

“You know, we had a good ses­sion ear­li­er to­day and are prepar­ing to play Bar­ba­dos. We look for­ward to get­ting three points in the next game with some good foot­ball. We still be­lieve that we can do this, so we’re go­ing to give it every­thing we have,” Gor­don ex­plained.

The coun­try’s Un­der-17 foot­ballers were sur­pris­ing­ly beat­en by their Bar­ba­di­an coun­ter­parts 1-0 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um ear­li­er this month. The Bar­ba­di­ans shock­ing­ly went on to fin­ish sec­ond in the group, which con­fined the Ran­dolph Boyce team to third. T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Kieron Ed­wards has since is­sued a call for an over­haul of the un­der-17 pro­gramme, com­ing in the wake of both the Un­der-17 boys’ and girls’ fail­ure to earn a qual­i­fy­ing berth in the FI­FA Un­der-17 World Cups.

Gor­don ex­pressed con­fi­dence in his charges, most of whom are with clubs or acad­e­mies out­side of T&T. Still, dur­ing their prepa­ra­tion, they got good re­sults against their coun­ter­parts from Grena­da and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, as well as T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League out­fits De­fence Force and AC Port-of-Spain.

The Un­der-20 will take on Sint Maarten on March 2 and con­clude the group stage on March 4 against the Cos­ta Ri­cans.