T&T Un­der-20 foot­ballers will open their cam­paign in the Con­ca­caf Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onships against Bermu­da at 4 pm Tues­day af­ter­noon in a Group E en­counter at the Cos­ta Ri­can Fed­er­a­tion Field #2 in Ala­juela.

On­ly the top team will emerge from the group. Na­tion­al coach Mar­vin Gor­don said he is con­fi­dent his charges can rise to the oc­ca­sion and qual­i­fy out of the group stage, which al­ways in­cludes Bar­ba­dos, Sint Maarten and host Cos­ta Ri­ca. Gor­don’s men were fea­tured in a se­ries of friend­ly match­es dur­ing their prepa­ra­tion when they took on their Grena­di­an and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines coun­ter­parts, as well as lo­cal T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League cam­paign­ers AC Port-of-Spain and De­fence Force.

Gor­don be­lieves the qual­i­ty of the De­fence Force would have pro­vid­ed ide­al prepa­ra­tion for group gi­ants and host Mex­i­co.

Gor­don’s abil­i­ty as a coach will be un­der a mi­cro­scope, with both the coun­try’s un­der-17 boys’ and girls’ teams fail­ing to earn a qual­i­fy­ing berth at the Con­ca­caf World Cup Qual­i­fiers, as both teams fin­ished third in their re­spec­tive groups. Pres­i­dent of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, Kieron Ed­wards, has since called for a to­tal over­haul of the pro­grammes from which the play­ers were cho­sen.

Gor­don’s team will fea­ture more than 90 per cent of the play­ers from over­seas, in­clud­ing de­fend­er Chaz Williams of the In­ter Mi­a­mi Acad­e­my, Sheri­dan Mc­Nish of the New Eng­land Rev­o­lu­tion Acad­e­my, Do­minic Joseph of Van­cou­ver FC, Josi­ah Kallicha­ran of Swansea City in Eng­land, and de­fend­er Jaden Chan Tack of the Col­orado Rapids.

One-time school­boy sen­sa­tion, strik­er Der­rel ‘Zoom Zoom’ Gar­cia, who opt­ed to play for San Juan Jabloteh in the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League in­stead of in the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL), was among a few lo­cal play­ers on the team, along with Phillip Nel­son, who rep­re­sents the De­fence Force; Jaadon Paul Alexan­der of Cale­do­nia AIA; Ca­den Tre­strail and Malachi Webb of San Juan Jabloteh.

Coach said they will be treat­ing the match as a fi­nal, say­ing, “From here on, it’s not about talk­ing. It’s about ac­tion and get­ting re­sults. We are go­ing to ap­proach every game like a fi­nal and do every­thing in our pow­er to qual­i­fy.”

The T&T team will next face Bar­ba­dos on Thurs­day and Sint Maarten on March 2, be­fore con­clud­ing the group stage against the Mex­i­cans two days lat­er (March 4).

The group win­ners will ad­vance to the 2026 Con­ca­caf U-20 Cham­pi­onship, join­ing the six top-ranked na­tions that have al­ready se­cured au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

The 12-team cham­pi­onship is sched­uled to run from Ju­ly 25 to Au­gust 9, 2026, and will serve as the re­gion’s qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ment for the 2027 FI­FA Men’s U-20 World Cup and the 2028 Sum­mer Olympics.

T&T U-20 team

Bryan Gafiuk, Je­re­my Mel­oney, Sheri­dan Mc Nish, Adam Pierre, Jay­don Capret­ta, Ca­den Tre­strail, Malachi Webb, Josi­ah Ochoa, Phillip Nel­son, Der­rel Gar­cia, Chaz Williams, Col­in Xavier Joseph, Lyshaun Mor­ris, Ta­lan Mc Mil­lan, Jadon Mc Shine, Jaden Chan Tack, Do­minic Joseph, Jadon-Paul Alexan­der, Josi­ah Kallicha­ran, Gio­van­ni Hospedales, Sylvon Theophilus.