Na­tion­al women’s coach Dami­an Brig­gs is plan­ning to play an at­trac­tive, at­tack­ing brand of foot­ball when his charges square off with Bar­ba­dos in a Group F en­counter from 4 pm Mon­day at Kens­ing­ton Oval, in the Con­ca­caf World Cup Qual­i­fiers.

​Brig­gs’ team had a late start to their prepa­ra­tion un­der then-coach An­gus Eve. This was fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by Eve’s de­par­ture in Oc­to­ber, ow­ing to a de­ci­sion by the tech­ni­cal staff to pe­nalise a play­er for a Face­book post that high­light­ed her dis­ap­point­ment with an­oth­er play­er. Brig­gs’ team left for Bridgetown on Sat­ur­day, and he told the me­dia his play­ers are all “buzzing” and con­fi­dent ahead of Mon­day’s match.

In a re­cent in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match against Ja­maica’s Reg­gae Girlz at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va, the home team was beat­en 4-1 de­spite a won­der strike from school­girl sen­sa­tion Niki­ta Go­sine. Brig­gs said they have tak­en a lot of pos­i­tives away from that match and will be ready for to­day.

​“We want to play in pos­ses­sion and an at­tack­ing style of foot­ball, an ex­cit­ing brand of foot­ball where, you know, we want to look at com­bi­na­tions across the park to get us from back to front, and to cre­ate chances in the op­po­si­tion’s fi­nal third,” Brig­gs as­sured. “And al­so, when we’re out of pos­ses­sion, we want to be re­al­ly ag­gres­sive to try and win the ball back as hard as we can. We’re not naive. We know we can’t press for 90 min­utes, so we have to adapt and ad­just the mo­ments when we can’t.

​He fur­ther elab­o­rat­ed on their de­fen­sive strat­e­gy: “How we’ll be able to screen the ball from go­ing in be­hind, stop­ping them from play­ing through and forc­ing them to play around the over. That gives us more of a chance of win­ning the ball back. And al­so, you know, in the mid­field, when the play is in the mid­field, it might then be an op­por­tu­ni­ty for us to press from sort of a low­er area than, as we say, al­ways try­ing to press from as high up.

“And then again, it de­pends on what they do as the op­po­si­tion. If we press well and they read it, they might ad­just and de­cide to go a bit longer. Then we have to ad­just and adapt to deal with it. So, I think the play­ers are get­ting bet­ter every day. The pro­gres­sion is mas­sive. We see it day in, day out, and I think the play­ers are warm­ing to it more and more.”

​In a group that com­pris­es Bar­ba­dos, El Sal­vador, and Hon­duras, the T&T women will need to win the group to ad­vance. Brig­gs has com­piled a good blend of lo­cal and over­seas-based play­ers in his 23-woman team, which al­so sees the re­turn of Asha James, Vic­to­ria Swift, de­fend­er Liana Hinds, and Kedie John­son.

​Brig­gs, who has been work­ing with as­sis­tant coach Den­sill Theobald, stat­ed that the mood in the camp has been good, as the women are ready to take the field for ac­tion.

He said, “The camp is buzzing at the mo­ment, where every­one feels like, you know, every­one’s quite up­beat and quite con­fi­dent about com­ing away from here with the re­sult. The dis­ci­pline be­tween us all, where we’re not go­ing to un­der­es­ti­mate any­one that we’re go­ing to play. They haven’t beat­en us, but the ball is round, and we un­der­stand that. So, we’ve got to take each game as it comes.

“But I just think from the mood that was set over the pe­ri­od of time that we’ve been to­geth­er, you know, ob­vi­ous­ly, new coach­ing staff, new things, new ways about how we do things, how we want to ap­proach things. So, I think it’s just that, it’s just us be­liev­ing in our­selves and be­liev­ing in our­selves. And it doesn’t mat­ter which op­po­si­tion comes; we be­lieve that we can go there and do a job.”

​The T&T women will face Hon­duras on March 3 and then El Sal­vador on April 16. They will play two games at home and two away dur­ing this qual­i­fy­ing pe­ri­od.

T&T SQUAD

Goal­keep­ers: 21 Aky­la Wal­cott, 1 Si­mone Eligon, 18 Tene­sha Palmer

De­fend­ers: 23 Chris­sy Mitchell, 5 Ci­ce­ly Spencer Wick­ham, 22 Kait­lyn Dar­went, 14 Ke­dia John­son, 2 Shau­nalee Govia, 15 Christa Wa­ter­man, 6 Vic­to­ria Swift, 3 Kani­ka Ro­driguez

Mid­field­ers: 20 Maria-Frances Ser­rant, 7 Liana Hinds, 16 Sheneil Find­ley, 12 Orielle Mar­tin, 4 Lo­rall Ro­main, 8 Asha James

For­wards: 11 Aaliyah Prince, 10 Alex­cia Ali, 17 Ar­i­an­na Bor­neo, 19 Ken­nya Cord­ner, 9 Niki­ta Go­sine, 13 Gabrielle Williams