The Mar­vin Gor­don-coached T&T men’s Un­der-20 foot­ballers end­ed their three-match se­ries un­beat­en af­ter a 1-1 draw with Grena­da at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, on Fri­day night.

Fol­low­ing wins over St Vin­cent and the Grenadines (SVG), 6-0 and T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I club, Ath­let­ic Club Port-of-Spain (AC PoS), 5-0, Gor­don opt­ed to give rest to key play­ers, cap­tain Der­rel Gar­cia and Malachi Webb and more game time to sev­er­al fringe play­ers.

De­spite the ab­sence of Gar­cia and Webb, T&T still start­ed the brighter of both teams and took the lead in the 11th minute through Gio­van­ni Hospedales, which they took in­to the half-time in­ter­val.

In the sec­ond half, Grena­da drew lev­el in the 62nd minute thanks to Ra­heem Rae­burn, af­ter which both teams failed to find the win­ner.

Ear­li­er on at the same venue, AC PoS downed SVG 4-2 with for­mer T&T strik­er Brent Sam scor­ing a pair of goals for the win­ner, with Shaquille Hold­er and Jo­moul Fran­cois, the oth­ers.

The T&T squad used the se­ries as part of their prepa­ra­tions for their up­com­ing Con­ca­caf U-20 Cham­pi­onship Group E qual­i­fiers in Ala­juela, Cos­ta Ri­ca, in­volv­ing the host coun­try, Bermu­da, Bar­ba­dos and Sint Maarten next month.

The tour­na­ment will take place from Feb­ru­ary 23 to March 4, across three venues in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

The 32 par­tic­i­pat­ing men’s U-20 teams have been split in­to two groups of six and four groups of five.

The Es­ta­dio Miguel Chocor­rón Buitra­go in Man­agua, Nicaragua, will host Group A and Group F; Group B and Group D match­es will be played at Sta­dion Rig­naal ‘Jean’ Fran­cis­ca in Willem­stad, Cu­raçao; and Group C and Group E match­es will be held at the Com­ple­jo De­porti­vo FCRF-Plycem in San Rafael de Ala­juela, Cos­ta Ri­ca.

Af­ter round-robin play, the first-place team from each group will ad­vance to the 2026 Con­ca­caf U-20 Fi­nal Round Cham­pi­onship, join­ing the six top-ranked na­tions that are pre-qual­i­fied di­rect­ly to the tour­na­ment.

The six na­tion­al teams pre-seed­ed in the Cham­pi­onship are (in rank­ing or­der): USA, Mex­i­co, Hon­duras, Pana­ma, Cu­ba, and Guatemala.

The 12-team Cham­pi­onship is sched­uled for the sum­mer of 2026, run­ning from Ju­ly 25 to Au­gust 9, and will fea­ture the re­gion’s 12 best men’s U-20 na­tion­al teams di­vid­ed in­to three groups of four. The tour­na­ment will al­so serve as the qual­i­fy­ing com­pe­ti­tion for both the 2027 FI­FA Men’s U-20 World Cup and the 2028 Sum­mer Olympics.

Af­ter round-robin play, the two top teams of each group and the two best third-place teams will ad­vance to a Knock­out Stage com­prised of the quar­ter­fi­nals, semi­fi­nals, and fi­nal.

In the pre­vi­ous edi­tion of the Con­ca­caf U-20 Cham­pi­onship, played in Mex­i­co in 2024, Mex­i­co won the ti­tle by de­feat­ing the Unit­ed States 2-1 in the fi­nal.

Con­ca­caf Un­der-20 Qual­i­fiers Groups

Group A: El Sal­vador, Suri­name, Be­lize, Grena­da, Saint Mar­tin, French Guiana

Group B: Ja­maica, Puer­to Ri­co, St Kitts/Nevis, Cay­man Is­lands, Turks and Caicos Is­lands, Bonaire

Group C: Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Saint Lu­cia, British Vir­gin Is­lands, Do­mini­ca

Group D: Haiti, Cu­raçao, Guyana, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, An­guil­la

Group E: Cos­ta Ri­ca, T&T, Bermu­da, Bar­ba­dos, Sint Maarten

Group F: Cana­da, Nicaragua, Aru­ba, Mar­tinique, US Vir­gin Is­lands