Maria-Frances Ser­rant, one of the goal-scor­ers in the na­tion­al se­nior women's foot­ball team's re­cent 2-0 win over Do­mini­ca in their sec­ond Con­ca­caf W Cham­pi­onship en­counter on Sun­day in Guyana, will lead the na­tion­al Un­der-20 team on Fri­day against El Sal­vador.

Ser­rant, ac­cord­ing to head coach Ja­son Spence yes­ter­day, was named cap­tain with Sarah De Gannes serv­ing as vice-cap­tain ahead of their open­ing match in Group G round-robin se­ries of the Con­ca­caf Women’s U-20 Cham­pi­onship in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

"They will be lead­ing the chal­lenges through the tour­na­ment," said Spence in the pre-match in­ter­view. "Every­body's fit, every­body is look­ing good. The camp is nice, the vibes are nice and of course hav­ing Maria with us, com­ing off of her very good show­ing with the se­nior team has al­so lift­ed the spir­its of the group."

Ser­rant came on as a sub­sti­tute in the first half of the se­nior Women War­riors' sec­ond Group F match against the Do­mini­cans and scored T&T's sec­ond goal in the sec­ond half.

Her lead­er­ship will be vi­tal as T&T tries to fin­ish among the top three teams which will qual­i­fy for the 2022 FI­FA U-20 Women's World Cup in Cos­ta Ri­ca. T&T, who is among 20 teams com­pet­ing for the chance to rep­re­sent Con­ca­caf at the event set for Cos­ta Ri­ca, will face St Kitts and Nevis on Sun­day and Cana­da on Tues­day in its oth­er Group G match­es in San­to Domin­go.

"We are go­ing pret­ty good. I must say the en­tire team is fi­nal­ly here. The last mem­ber would have come in yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) and we were able to get our first on the field, to loosen up and be­gin tight­en­ing up for how we in­tend to play against El Sal­vador to­mor­row (to­day), said Spence look­ing ahead at to­day's match, adding: "I'm im­press­ing on the girls that we stay very dis­ci­plined and or­gan­ised.

"We know tra­di­tion­al­ly teams like El Sal­vador like to play the quick short pass­ing game and we have been do­ing some work to pre­pare for it. I have been do­ing my own home­work on El Sal­vador and how they in­tend to play, how they like to play now un­der their new coach, who is coach­ing all of their teams.

"So def­i­nite­ly, we be­lieve that we are ready for the way they are go­ing to be play­ing and we will be able to com­bat it. Of course, with how we in­tend to open them up to get our goals," said Spence who added that they were to have a train­ing ses­sion yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) af­ter­noon then head over to the venue where he and his staff which in­clude as­sis­tant coach De­siree Sar­jeant were to do a prop­er walk­through and check out the field.

At the pre­vi­ous Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onship al­so held in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in 2020, the lo­cal U-20 team un­der coach Richard Hood reached the quar­ter-fi­nal round but were elim­i­nat­ed by Mex­i­co, 4-0.

T&T Un­der-20 women team

Goal­keep­ers

Aaliyah Alexan­der (Jew­els FC), Chelsea Ram­nauth (Po­lice FC), Aky­la Wal­cott (Es­sex Coun­ty Col­lege/USA).

De­fend­ers

Ashante Wil­son-Camp­bell (Jew­els FC), Moe­ne­sa Mejias (Trinci­ty Na­tion­als), Lat­ifha Pas­call (Navara Col­lege/USA), Chris­sy Mitchell (South­west­ern Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­si­ty), De­r­isha Bris­tol (Jew­els FC), Aaliyah Trim (FC Gin­ga),

Mid­field­ers

Sarah De Gannes (Brew­ton-Park­er Col­lege), Mar­ley Walk­er (Charleston Soc­cer Club/USA), Dar­i­anne Hen­ry (Jew­els FC), Char­l­ize Hood (Po­lice FC), Ce­line Lo­raine (Jew­els FC), Lil­lian Selvon (Trinci­ty Na­tion­als), Tori Paul (Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land/USA), Maria-Frances Ser­rant (Cor­ban Uni­ver­si­ty), Temia St Clair (UTT Pa­tri­ots),

For­wards

Shurel­la Mendez (un­at­tached), Jhelysse An­tho­ny (In­ter­na­tion­al Soc­cer Club/USA)

Tech­ni­cal staff

Ja­son Spence (head coach), Trevor Not­ting­ham (goal­keep­er coach), De­siree Sar­jeant (as­sis­tant coach), Ver­net­ta Flan­ders (man­ag­er), Don­na-Marie Wick­ham (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Ash­ley Alon­so (train­er), Na­tal­ie Harp­er (equip­ment man­ag­er), Kristin Fung (team doc­tor).