The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) announce the appointment of the technical staff for the Senior Women’s National Team to head coach James Thomas of Wales.
According to a release from the TTFA on Wednesday, Thomas will lead a team consisting of Charlie Mitchell (Assistant Coach & Performance Analyst), James Baird (Goalkeeper Coach), Joanne Daniel (Team Manager), Terry Johnson-Jeremiah (Equipment Manager), Atiba Downes (Strength and Conditioning Coach) and Aqilya Gomez (Rehab Specialist).
Guardian Media Sports understands that Mitchell is a British national, who is a UEFA qualified coach and has spent time as a member of the Wales Women's national team staff and held similar positions at various clubs in Europe, while Daniel, the manager is an English-born coach who resides in T&T. She's former assistant manager to the national senior women team programme back in 2010, and a former T&T Under-17 women coach under former head coach of the women's programme Italian coach Carolina Morace in 2017.
The release also outlined the recruitment process adopted by the TTFA before arriving at the appointment. It stated that the positions were filled using a robust recruitment system of candidate reviews and interviews by a selection panel consisting of TTFA Technical Director Dion La Foucade, Women’s Football Director Jinelle James, former Trinidad and Tobago national footballer Richard Chinapoo and Head Coach Thomas.
The panel reviewed the candidates’ applications and created shortlists for each position. The shortlisted candidates were then invited to an interview process where they were assessed on their credentials, tactical knowledge, coaching style and ability and willingness to learn. The Strength and Conditioning Coach and Rehab Specialist were evaluated using a similar process under the guidance of the TTFA’s Return to Play Medical Committee.
Commenting on the process, Thomas, the holder of a UEFA A License and a UEFA Elite Youth A License stated: “For us to get back to being competitive on the international stage, it was crucially important that we provide the players with a safe, respectful, competitive and challenging learning environment, and to do that we followed a thorough and rigorous recruitment process for all staff positions.”
Thomas, the former Cardiff City Ladies FC coach who has signed an initial one-year contract with an option to extend for a further year, said: “This is international football, which is the highest level of the game, so we needed to ensure that we recruited staff to recognise and implement the necessary standards in their specialised fields of expertise, and we have done that with these appointments—the leading candidates from the process. For our team to perform at a level acceptable for the nation and its fans, we need them to become learners. Learning every session, every day, every game to become better players. For this to happen, we needed to surround the players with staff that also are dedicated to their own learning every single day and continually wanting to better themselves in terms of their formal qualifications and personal learning journeys. We cannot ask and expect the players to push and challenge themselves to be better every day if the staff don’t do the same. We have to be the standard setters.”
All of the selected candidates were then recommended to the Normalization Committee for appointment and accepted contractual terms that were affordable to the TTFA, given its financial constraints.
Mitchell, the only additional member of staff who is a non-resident, will be available for the Senior Women’s National Team camps and competitions and his services as a performance analyst will also be made available to other National Teams such as the Senior Men’s.
Over the last few weeks, a training pool of approximately 60 players across T&T underwent medical assessments with the assistance of TTFA’s partner HealthNet Caribbean Limited and fitness assessments, overseen by Movements Mechanics, to determine baseline health and fitness levels.
Thomas is scheduled to select his final local training squad in early August after holding training sessions on each island. This was facilitated with the support of the Tobago Football Association (TFA).
<About the Women’s NT Coach Mentorship Programme>
The release also states that additionally, the TTFA will be launching the Women’s National Team Coach Mentorship Programme very soon to increase the platform and opportunities for women coaches. This Mentorship Programme will focus on former Trinidad and Tobago Women’s National Team players by providing them with opportunities through FIFA’s Women’s Development Programme for coach education and development. The candidate will also be mentored by head coach Thomas, work with the Senior Women’s staff as an Assistant Coach and benefit from workshops and pitch-side training in performance analysis, periodization and overall coach development.
Thomas said: “If you look at the FIFA rankings, there are nations much smaller than T&T, that are ranked much higher than us, and it isn’t a coincidence that these nations and their coaches have recognised the importance of coach development and education to benefit their National Teams. This is why I have also suggested and been working behind the scenes for a few weeks on a Women’s National Teams Coach Mentoring programme for talented local coaches, and I’m really encouraged that the TTFA has been so receptive to the proposal. I want to leave the Women’s National Team and the coaches dedicated to their development, within the Trinidad and Tobago Women’s football arena, in a stronger place than I found it. I believe this mentorship programme can improve both the players and coaches for the benefit of the National Teams for years to come, which is something I am hugely passionate about.”