Trinidad and Tobago’s National Under 17 footballers returned home from their two-match trip to Peru on Monday on a slightly better note as they held the Under 20 team of Universidad 0-0 in Sunday’s friendly in Lima.
The Anton Corneal-coached outfit gave a stronger showing than their previous 3-1 loss to Sporting Cristal, but again failed to put away scoring chances in the encounter. This lack of killer instinct in front of goal, according to Corneal, means that more emphasis will be placed on finishing in training as the team goes into a live-in training camp in South, Trinidad from Thursday and then heads over to the sister isle Tobago on Monday.
“It was a satisfying result in the second game but at this stage of the preparations you tend to always want to do better particularly as players,”Corneal told TTFF Media.
“I think overall we saw things that we need to place more emphasis on but defensive we were not bad. We put a defensive system in place which the boys felt comfortable with and it worked in the second game. We didn’t make as much mistakes in the first half as we did in the loss to Sporting Cristal. But again we didn’t put away the chances. We need to work on that and improve it because we need to score goals against tougher teams when we will not get that much on goal.
“We had a chance to see all the players and to see some of our newer players in competitive situations. We also saw which ones have the potential and appetite for the game at that level,”Corneal continued.
He added that the team will now go into its final phase of preparation which will not necessarily involve too much game playing.
“We go into our final phase from Thursday where the intensity will be stepped up. We will work towards being more game fit. It will ask for a little more overload now and we need to do it before the World Cup. We probably won’t have as many games for the next two weeks or so. It will be a very stringent programme from here on. The players are prepared for that and that’s a plus. They are focused and understanding more of what we are doing and trying to achieve in terms of the preparations for the bigger games in Korea,” Corneal concluded. T&T opens its FIFA World Under 17 Championship campaign against Ghana on August 20 and will also face Germany and Ghana.