T&T’s Un­der-17 men’s foot­ballers will be­gin their cam­paign for World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion against Bar­ba­dos Tues­day night (Feb­ru­ary 3) from 7 pm at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

​Coach Ran­dolph Boyce and his charges are look­ing to re­bound from a pair of heavy de­feats against Pe­ru last week, where they con­ced­ed 12 goals across two in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies. The T&T young­sters suf­fered a 6-0 loss on Jan­u­ary 28, fol­lowed by a 6-1 de­feat to close out their warm-up pe­ri­od.

​Speak­ing be­fore the fi­nal train­ing ses­sion at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma, yes­ter­day, Boyce urged the me­dia not to use those re­sults as a de­fin­i­tive gauge for the team, not­ing that there were pos­i­tive mo­ments in both Pe­ru match­es. The ju­nior foot­ballers will con­test Group A at the sta­di­um along­side Mex­i­co, Bar­ba­dos, Dutch Sint Maarten, and French Saint Mar­tin. On­ly the top team in the group will progress to the next round.

​While Boyce ad­mit­ted he has as­sessed the Bar­ba­di­ans, he didn’t want to re­veal the con­tents. In­stead, he point­ed to his team’s to­geth­er­ness as their strength go­ing in­to the qual­i­fiers.

“I think the ex­pe­ri­ence was great for the boys. I don’t think we could re­al­ly want to use that to mea­sure it up for this tour­na­ment, so let’s go in­to this tour­na­ment and see how things go. We are at home, we are the home team, so def­i­nite­ly we would want to play on the front foot and try to see if we can get the best of the op­po­nent as ear­ly as pos­si­ble,” Boyce said.

​When asked about his team’s strengths, Boyce high­light­ed their work eth­ic, say­ing: “ I would say the to­geth­er­ness. How hard they work for each oth­er. They are a dis­ci­plined bunch, and they are a bunch that re­al­ly want to learn the game, and they are con­tin­u­ous­ly work­ing hard for each oth­er.”

​De­spite the lop­sided score­lines against the Pe­ru­vians, Boyce be­lieves those match­es and oth­ers like that are nec­es­sary for the coun­try to do well in the fu­ture.

He said, “Look at our his­to­ry in youth foot­ball and se­nior foot­ball, which coun­tries have been stop­ping us from go­ing to World Cups? Main­ly, North and Cen­tral Amer­i­can teams, not so?

“So, un­til we could close the gap be­tween those coun­tries, I think you have the an­swer. So, we need to close that gap. So, in my opin­ion, those are the types of coun­tries we need to con­tin­ue play­ing on a reg­u­lar ba­sis if we could.”

​Je­re­mi­ah Daniel will cap­tain the team against the Ba­jans tonight. The fi­nal 21-man squad al­so in­cludes Cana­da-based Chris­t­ian Pitt of the Toron­to FC Acad­e­my. Boyce wants his play­ers to put their best foot for­ward.

“I don’t treat play­ers at this young age to give them that kind of man to put them un­der any pres­sure. It’s a team game. We play the game as a col­lec­tive group, and every­body knows their role and func­tion, so we look for the best of every play­er.

“The T&T team will at­tempt to play on the front foot from the start, as they go in an all-out at­tempt for the win.”

T&T U-17 Boys Con­ca­caf ros­ter

Goal­keep­ers: Necose Moore (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege/T&T), Levi Williams (In­ter Mi­a­mi/USA), Mikhail Clement (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/Cox Foot­ball Acad­e­my/T&T)

De­fend­ers: Jay­lon Roberts (St Mary’s Col­lege/Car­di­nals Foot­ball Acad­e­my/T&T), Je­re­mi­ah Daniel (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/Union Hall/T&T), Ke­nai Richard­son (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/Cox Foot­ball Acad­e­my), An­to­nio Hills (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/Club San­do FC/T&T).

Mid­field­ers: Reagen Rowe (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/City FC/T&T), Se­bastien James (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/Cox Coach­ing School/T&T), Dono­van Dray­ton Jr (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/T&T), Finn De Fre­itas (St Mary’s Col­lege/City FC), Adriel Fau­re (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege/T&T), Chris­t­ian Pitt (Toron­to FC Acad­e­my/Cana­da), An­tu­an Loui­son (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/T&T), Akel Vesprey (Munro Col­lege/Ja­maica)

For­wards: Ja­sai Theophilus (QRC/Pro Se­ries/T&T), Je­re­mai Nan­ton (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/City FC/T&T), Je­lani Stoute (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege/T&T), Kanye Gals­gow (T&T), Je­lani Stoute (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege/T&T), J’Meke Watkins (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary/T&T),

Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 Men’s Qual­i­fy­ing Groups

Group A: Mex­i­co, T&T, Bar­ba­dos, Saint Mar­tin, Sint Maarten

Group B: Pana­ma, Nicaragua, An­guil­la, Do­mini­ca

Group C: Haiti, Guatemala, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Grena­da

Group D: Cos­ta Ri­ca, Puer­to Ri­co, British Vir­gin Is­lands, Turks and Caicos Is­lands

Group E: USA, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines

Group F: El Sal­vador, Cu­raçao, Cu­ba, Be­lize

Group G: Cana­da, Ja­maica, Aru­ba, Cay­man Is­lands

Group H: Hon­duras, Bermu­da, Guyana, Suri­name

Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 Group A sched­ule

Venue: Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo:

To­day: Saint Mar­tin vs Sint Maarten, 4 pm; T&T vs Bar­ba­dos 7 pm

Thurs­day: Sint Maarten vs Mex­i­co, 4 pm; T&T vs Saint Mar­tin, 7 pm

Sat­ur­day: Bar­ba­dos vs Sint Maarten, 4 pm; Mex­i­co vs Saint Mar­tin, 7 pm

Mon­day: Sint Maarten vs T&T, 4 pm; Bar­ba­dos vs Mex­i­co, 7 pm

Feb­ru­ary 12: Saint Mar­tin vs Bar­ba­dos, 4 pm; Mex­i­co vs T&T, 7 pm