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Final U-20 Squad named for CONCACAF Qualifiers.
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Trinidad and Tobago Men’s Under 20 Head Coach on Thursday announced a final 20-man roster to participate at the upcoming CONCACAF U-20 Men’s Championship at the IMG Academy, Bradenton, Florida from November 1st.

Latapy’s team resumed training on Tuesday at the Manny Ramjohn Stadium in Marabella.

“It’s a situation where we’ve come up with what is the best squad available to us at this time and we’ll head entering the tournament with the intentions of giving the best possible performance. I’ve always treated any football match or competition in that manner as a player and as a coach and it will be no different this time around,” Latapy said.

T&T will feature in Group A and will meet St Vincent and the Grenadines in their first match on November 1st. They then face Puerto Rico (Nov 3rd), United States (Nov 5th), Suriname (Nov 7th) and US Virgin Islands on November 9th. Only the Group winners of the six groups will advance to the next phase of two qualifying from which the top two teams from each group will qualify for the 2019 FIFA Under 20 Men’s World Cup in Poland.

The 2018 CONCACAF Under-20 Championship will be the 6th edition of the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship (27th edition if all eras included), the men’s under-20 international football tournament organized by CONCACAF. It will be hosted at Bradenton, Florida, United States between 1–21 November 2018.

A new format was announced, removing the regional Central American and Caribbean qualifiers and guaranteeing each entrant a minimum of four competitive games.

The competition will determine the four CONCACAF representatives at the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Poland.It will also determine the CONCACAF teams playing at the 2019 Pan American Games men’s football tournament in Lima. United States are the defending CONCACAF champions.

T&T Squad.

Goalkeepers:

Denzil Smith (W Connection), Jabari Brice (Unattached).

Defenders:

Luke Singh (Toronto FC II), Kerdell Sween (Trinity College East),Derron John (Club Sando); Jerrin Jackie (Presentation College), Justin Homer (Kean University—US), Mikel Mieres (Morvant Caledonia Utd), Matthew Beal (Shiva Boys Hindu College),

Midfielders:

Jabarry Francis (Club Sando), Judah Garcia (Point Fortin Civic), Shaqkeem Joseph (Moruga Secondary), Ethan Bonaparte (St Augustine Secondary); Che Benny (Leixões—Portugal), Kishon Hackshaw (St Ann’s Rangers), John-Paul Rochford (QRC), Nickel Orr (San Juan Jabloteh), Mark Ramdeen (Naparima College).

Forwards:

Jaydon Prowell (North East Stars), Isaiah Lee (Monroe College—US).

Head Coach – Russell Latapy.

National Under 20 Men's Team resume training for Concacaf Championship

RELATED NEWS

Visa issues for U-20s Francis, Beckles.
By Walter Alibey (Guardian).


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.