T&T’s Un­der-17 women foot­ballers face a pos­i­tive chance of pro­gress­ing to the sec­ond round of the Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 Cham­pi­onships af­ter a 1-0 loss to Hon­duras in their fi­nal match in Group B on Fri­day at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va.

Af­ter vic­to­ries over the Unit­ed States Vir­gin Is­lands (USVI) 5-0 and Be­lize 2-0, the Ca­lyp­so Princess­es were stopped from hav­ing an un­blem­ished record in their last match by be­ing edged by Hon­duras 1-0, which sent the Hon­durans through to the sec­ond round as the group win­ner.

The win­ners of each group progress to the sec­ond round, along with the two best sec­ond-place teams from the group stage. With six points, the lo­cal girls seem to be well poised to ad­vance with a goal dif­fer­ence of pos­i­tive 6. In Group A, Puer­to Ri­co took the top spot with three wins, while sec­ond-place Bermu­da has a goal dif­fer­ence of five.

In Group C, Cu­ba al­so trails the So­ca Princess­es with six points and a goal dif­fer­ence of ze­ro, af­ter the Pana­ma­ni­ans sealed the top spot with an un­blem­ished record in three games.

Mean­while, in Group D, El Sal­vador took the top spot with nine points from their al­lot­ted three match­es, but sec­ond-place Guatemala se­cured the run­ner-up po­si­tion with six points and a goal dif­fer­ence of ze­ro, putting them in dan­ger of pro­gress­ing to the next round of com­pe­ti­tion.

Na­tion­al coach Ayan­na Rus­sell told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day from all in­di­ca­tions her charges are through to the sec­ond round, but they would have a lot of work to do if they were to com­pete.

“I thought the team had a good per­for­mance; they were up for the fight, so I am re­al­ly proud of the girls. That would have been the most dif­fi­cult game they would have played, in terms of not just the game but the emo­tions and all of that, so I’m proud of them for the fight, the ef­fort, and the pride that they showed,” said Rus­sell.

“I guess it’s all about con­fir­ma­tion now, but based on my un­der­stand­ing we’re through be­cause in the oth­er groups of four, we are at the top based on goal dif­fer­ence as the sec­ond-best team. Usu­al­ly, in the group of three, on­ly one team goes through, so it’s just con­fir­ma­tion on that, but I think we should be go­ing through,” Rus­sell ex­plained.

A qual­i­fy­ing berth to the sec­ond round for the Rus­sell-coached team would make them the on­ly team since 2018 to ad­vance to the sec­ond round, Rus­sell ad­mit­ted, not­ing that they will have a lot of work to cov­er to be com­pet­i­tive now.

T&T TEAM

1 Zaira Almey, 2 Kait­lyn Dar­went, 3 Hac­k­eemar Goodridge, 6 Che­ri­na Steele, 7 Rashe­da Archer, 9 Mia Lee Chong, 10 Orielle Mar­tin, 11 San­ni Wil­son, 12 Rori Git­tens, 15 Kani­ka Ro­driguez, 17 Mikaela Year­wood

Subs

18 Ken­isha Tay­lor, 21 Zofia Richards, 4 Aniya Thomp­son, 5 Daniel­la Paul, 8 Tykaiya Den­nis, 13 Zye­sha Potts, 16 Madi­son Camp­bell, 19 Jay­da Her­bert, 20 Jes­si­ca Nes­bitt

HON­DURAS

1 Maria Jimenez, 2 Yen­si Fer­rera, 5 Na­talia Gar­cia, 6 Stephany Mer­ca­do, 8 Paula Ramirez Guardi­o­la, 9 Chelsea Farmer, 10 Alexan­dra Mer­ri­am, 13 No­he­my Meza, 16 Lisy Sevil­la, 17 Ja­z­lyn Sanchez, 18 Evlin Or­donez

Subs

12 Mia Hey­er, 21 Kim­ber­ly Ro­driguez, 3 Em­my Munoz, 4 An­drea Pine­da, 7 Den­nise Madrid, 11 Kende­ly Vareia, 14 An­drea Er­a­zo, 15 Ash­ley Es­calante, 19 Al­lanys San­tos, 20 Liz Manue­les

<TTFA in­ves­ti­gates ob­ject-throw­ing at U-17 Con­ca­caf match>

Mean­while, the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to re­ports of ob­ject-throw­ing by mem­bers of the crowd dur­ing T&T’s Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 Women’s Cham­pi­onship match with Hon­duras at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va, which TT lost 1-0.

The foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion in a state­ment yes­ter­day, strong­ly con­demned the in­ci­dent af­ter match of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Guatemalan ref­er­ee Glen­da Lopez and her team, were sub­ject­ed to ob­jects be­ing thrown at them as they at­tempt­ed to ex­it the field.

TTFA pres­i­dent in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse said, “Foot­ball is a sport that unites com­mu­ni­ties and na­tions, and we urge all fans to em­brace the spir­it of fair play. Let us work to­geth­er to en­sure that our sta­di­ums re­main places of cel­e­bra­tion, not con­flict.”

With the los­ing re­sult, the So­ca Princess­es were still ex­pect­ed to ad­vance to the next phase of the tour­na­ment as one of the two best sec­ond-place teams.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment: “The TTFA has launched a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent and is work­ing close­ly with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that those re­spon­si­ble are held ac­count­able. We wish to re­mind all foot­ball sup­port­ers that re­spect, fair play, and good sports­man­ship must al­ways be up­held, both on and off the field.”