T&T U-17s look to end on winning note

Trinidad and Tobago’s Under-17 women footballers will not be making a second successive appearance at the World Cup after losing their second match to the United States 5-0 on Saturday evening. The young ladies will be hoping to end their campaign on a winning note against Bahamas today to close off their appearance at the final CONCACAF round in Guatemala City. Needing a win against United States, T&T showed a bit of grit but it was not enough to grind out a result. Mexico took the other semi-final round spot with a comfortable 6-0 win over Bahamas on Saturday's other encounter. “The history books will never tell us a story about a T&T Under-17 team that fought a strong and relatively even match for as long as 70 minutes against a power house and world leading team this afternoon,” manager Even Pellerud told said as he summed up the team’s performance soon after the final whistle.

 

 

Pellerud believes two factors affected T&T. “Our team could no longer cope with two factors that traditionally kill any T&T team. Even with main players Victoria Swift, Kadisha Debesette and Liana Hinds, we simply do not possess a player depth to cover for players of this stature. And a desperate lack of match experience and therefor match fitness hurts us when the game goes into the deep end,” Pellerud stated. “And then the classical judgment errors are piling up on the playing surface. With Debesette out we ran out of centre back options and were forced to move players around, thus the second goal was a result of total lack of judgment. The late goals created a final result that not really reflect the match. This happens to all of our national teams. Looking back at the loss, I felt the girls fought well and deserve credit for that. Most of them played up their individual potential against a superior opponent, and there isn’t more can a coach can ask for. The staff is immediately starting the job to get the girls mentally and physically ready for the Bahamas match on Monday, trying to make sure that a positive last match becomes the outcome.”