TTFF News - Young T&T team meets Guadeloupe in Gold Cup warm up

Photos show Wim Rijsbergen, Anton Corneal and Trent Noel leaving the practice field. And Kenwyne Jones in conversation with national players Kerry Baptiste and Jan Michael Williams, Silvio Spann and Jose Seabra of W Connection. Photos courtesy TTFF Media



Young T&T team meets Guadeloupe in Gold Cup warm up

Issued by Shaun Fuentes, TTFF Media Officer, March 23, 2007

Having seen their Jamaican counterparts outplayed by Switzerland in a friendly international on Thursday night, this country’s young bunch of senior footballers will be hoping to settle in quickly and come away with a businesslike win when they meet Guadeloupe at the Gosier Stadium from 7pm on Saturday.

The local squad, all home-based players, arrived in Basse-Terre on Friday morning before checking in at the Le Relax Hotel and were expected to have one evening training session before meeting fellow CONCACAF Gold Cup finalists Guadeloupe which finished fourth in the Digicel Caribbean Cup earlier this year.

While Saturday’s opponents in the Digicel sponsored match may not be as powerful as the Swiss, head coach Wim Rijsbergen and his players would have observed the “Reggae” Boys” at this stage and will want to ensure that they earn some form of respect before going into action against the United States, Guatemala and El Salvador in the Gold Cup. T&T are scheduled to meet the latter in another Digicel arranged friendly next month, some time after the originally mentioned April 7 match date. Digicel’s Group sponsorship manager Kieran Foley said this week that an appropriate date was still to be set.

Rijsbergen though, missing the likes of injured midfielder Densill Theobald who suffered a knee injury in training on Wednesday, Andrei Pacheco off to trial in America, the absent Kerwyn Jemmot and several other overseas-based professionals, was still grateful for the opportunity on the French island which has a rich culture in arts, particularly painting and sculpture and a widely accepted interaction of African, French and Indian[8] cultures. On the football side, they are well linked, with French star Thierry Henry regularly visiting the homeland of his father and Lilian Thuram and Louis Saha being born on the island.

“They are a French island of course and they have qualified for the Gold Cup. We will see what will happen and we are hoping for a good match which will give some of our players to get some match practice on the international level,” Rijsbergen told TTFF Media.

“A lot of them are young and we have some new faces. This gives us a chance to open it up a bit and see how they have come along since the Digicel Cup. Of course we know that they are all into preseason training so the match fitness will not be all that great but we will see.”

Surely Rijsbergen will be keen to see if anyone is showing any signs of moving on to bigger things like Kenwyne Jones who made his senior international debut four years ago against Finland in a team that was also minus several regular starters. He would next wear the national shirt a year and four months later against Iraq. Jones though has progressed to being lethal up front both for country and club and at the moment Southampton are banking on his services to reach the playoff for promotion.

“Right now that’s what we are aiming for. We are a few points off the playoff spot and we still have to play the teams that are on top of us so it is in our hands,” Jones said as he passed by a training session at the Ato Boldon Stadium on Wednesday, also showing eagerness to know when the well known ones like himself will be back in the mix.

The T&T squad for Saturday’s friendly includes debutants Romauld Aguillera (Petrotrin), Nicholson Thomas (W Connection), Khaleem Hyland (CL Financial San Juan Jabloteh), Keon Daniel (Petrotrin), Joe Public midfielder Silas Spann and striker Abiola Clarence who was in the training squad for the Digicel Cup. Joe Public striker Gary Glasgow will shoulder the goalscoring responsibilities.

The rest of the squad is: Marvin Phillip (unattached), Jan Michael Williams (W Connection), Seon Power (Joe Public), Dwayne Jack, (CL Financial San Juan Jabloteh), Nigel Daniel (CL Financial San Juan Jabloteh), Glenton Wolfe (North East Stars), Kwame Wiltshire (Joe Public),Christian Baptiste (Defence Force), Trent Noel (Jabloteh), Kerry Baptiste (Joe Public) and Andre Toussaint (W Connection).