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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Visa issues for U-20s Francis, Beckles

by

Walter Alibey
2459 days ago
20181025
T&T under 20 footballer, Che Benny

T&T under 20 footballer, Che Benny

T&T's Un­der-20 foot­ballers worked out at the Man­ny Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la yes­ter­day for a sec­ond time this week, in prepa­ra­tion for the CON­CA­CAF World Cup Qual­i­fiers in the USA in two weeks time.

The first ses­sion was on Wednes­day morn­ing, and the young play­ers are to go through an­oth­er train­ing ses­sion to­day at the same venue from 9:30 am, un­der the watch­ful eyes of na­tion­al coach Rus­sell Lat­apy.

The team is ex­pect­ed to leave on Sun­day. Team man­ag­er Alexan­dria Procupe said. But af­ter re­ceiv­ing visas for most of the play­ers and staff, she is still at­tempt­ing to gain in­ter­views for Club San­do's Jabar­ry Fran­cis, Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege's Matthew Beal and St An­tho­ny's Col­lege's mid­field­er High­ley Beck­les.

Both Beal and Fran­cis are two late ad­di­tions to the team, hence the last-ditch ef­forts to seek visas for them, while Beck­les was among the squad con­sid­ered ear­li­er in the cam­paign but was cut late by Lat­apy. Procupe said be­cause an ap­pli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted ear­li­er for High­ley, she has been forced to con­tin­ue her ef­forts to se­cure a visa for him.

Procupe who was ex­pect­ed to sub­mit the fi­nal list of 20 play­ers to the Con­ca­caf on Wednes­day night, said if the visas are not se­cured in time for Sun­day, the play­ers will ei­ther make the trip at a lat­er date or in a worst-case sce­nario, be re­placed.

The team in­cludes Por­tu­gal-based Che Ben­ny, de­fend­er Luke Singh who now rep­re­sents Toron­to FC in the Cana­di­an top-flight com­pe­ti­tion, strik­er Isa­iah Lee who re­cent­ly start­ed school at Rochester Col­lege in the Unit­ed States, mid­field­er John Paul Rochford, who left lo­cal shores last night for tri­al in the US, and 2017 Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) stand-out Ju­dah Gar­cia, who is on tri­als in Ar­genti­na.

Procupe said they are all to join the T&T team in the USA, ahead of the tour­na­ment, where TT will con­test Group 'A' of the qual­i­fiers, that in­cludes St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Puer­to Ri­co, Suri­name, US Vir­gin Is­lands and de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons USA.

Procupe told Guardian Me­dia Sports that al­though the team did not re­ceive prop­er prepa­ra­tion, she is con­fi­dent her lads will have a good chance of ad­vanc­ing. "The mood in the camp is very up­beat. I think we have a great bunch of tal­ent­ed play­ers, who, had been pre­pared bet­ter, would have re­al­ly had a good chance."

The play­ers are sched­uled to do their med­icals on Sat­ur­day. They will open their cam­paign against St Vin­cent and the Grenadines on No­vem­ber 1 and will play their last match No­vem­ber 9 against the USVI.

On­ly the top team will progress from the group.

TEAM

Den­zil Smith, Jabari Brice, Che Ben­ny, Ju­dah Gar­cia, Kishon Hack­shaw, Justin Homer, Jer­rin Jack­ie, Der­ron John, Shaq­keem Joseph, Isa­iah Lee, Mikel Mieres, Nick­el Orr, Jay­don Prow­ell, Mark Ramdeen, Matthew Beal, John-Paul Rochford, Luke Singh, Kerdell Sween, Jabar­ry Fran­cis, Ethan Bona­parte.


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