Head Coach of the Trinidad and Tobago team Wim Rijsbergen said on the eve of his team's opening fixture against Barbados that his bunch of mostly inexperienced players will seek to show so called experts that they are ready for international football.
This was the view coming from the Dutchman after concluding a final training session on a soggy Ato Boldon training pitch at abour 5pm on Thursday. His team lost the chance to train on the Hasely Crawford Stadium main field due to the heavy rain throughout the day and made the journey down from the Crowne Plaza.
And the spirit was a bouncy one as the players set themselves up for Day one of action.
Rijsbergen, well aware that he had several first timers in his squad, was in no mood to panic.
"We have guys who want to show that they can play at this level and it's a great chance to see what happens," he told reporters in the interview window following the session.
"There are more experts than soccer players in this country. Hopefully these guys will play well. These are one of the moments when we get to see if these guys are ready to face international football. They are very confident. We will see how far along they are."
"They are pretty good in the USA, but we wanted to see how they fared against the Pro League players. Similarly, we wanted to see how the Pro League players looked against international players when we played Austria. In the end, we will have a good mix ready to qualify for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers," Rijsbergen added as he also explained the reason for calling 40 odd players for the start of preparations for the Caribbean tournament.
"Let's see what happens and then we can go on from there," the Dutchman continued.
The two players cut from the original 22-man squad were W Connection's Nickcolson Thomas and US-based striker Abiola Clarence while Anthony Noreiga and Christian Baptiste are the two stand-bys.
T&T 18-man squad
Goalkeepers - Jan Michael Williams (W Connection), Marvin Phillips (Starworld Strikers)
Defenders - Seon Power, Makan Hislop (University of South Carolina), Osei Telesford, Keeron Benito (University of Tampa), Dwayne Jack (Tobago United), Nigel Daniel (CL Financial San Juan Jabloteh)
Midfielders - Kwame Wiltshire (Tobago United), Densill Theobald, Hayden Tinto (Caledonia AIA), Kerwyn Jemmot (Superstar Rangers), Leslie Fitzpatrick (unattached), Kerry Baptiste (Jabloteh)
Forwards - Scott Sealy (Kansas City Wizards), Gary Glasgow (Joe Public), Darryl Roberts (Liberty University), Joel Bailey (Monreal Impact)