The Trinidad and Tobago Under-17 women's team will step up their preparations for the 2010 FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup, which will be staged in T&T, by undertaking a tour of Jamaica.
This was revealed on Thursday by Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) special adviser and FIFA vice-president Jack Warner at a media conference at the Queen's Park Oval.
"The women leave for Jamaica next week to play two games against their Under-17 team. After Jamaica, they play two matches in El Salvador and they play two in Panama," said Warner.
And TTFF technical director of the women's programme Evan Pellerud is extremely pleased at the progress of the girls under his charge, despite them suffering a third defeat of the season in the 2009 Women's League Football (WOLF) on Wednesday when they went down 2-1 to Tobago FC at the Marvin Lee Stadium in Macoya.
Pellerud, who leaves Trinidad today for a ten-day vacation in his homeland Norway, described the match as very good for the development of his players.
The game saw several foreign-born players of Trinidad and Tobago parentage joining the national team. But Tobago FC, who have lost only to Joe Public (1-0) this season, also had their United States-based college players available as they completed the league double against the T&T Under-17s.
The speed and guile of senior national player Kennya "Ya Ya" Cordner were particularly troubling to the junior Soca Princesses and in the 15th minute she weaved her way up the left before being brought down and a penalty awarded.
Hard-kicking Karyn Forbes, another senior Trinidad and Tobago player, stepped up and booted home the shot to give Tobago a 1-0 lead.
Five minutes later, Cordner was played through after working a combination with another US-based player, Candice Edwards, before putting a low shot past USA-born Under-17 goalkeeper Saundra Baron.
The Under-17s were soon back in the match when Jo Marie Lewis put the ball past national senior team keeper Kamica Forbes, who later pulled off two remarkable saves to keep headers from Lewis out and so preserve the points for the Tobago team.