Just as in 2004, today's BG T&T Secondary Schools Football League National League final pits the best in the East against the best of the South. On Wednesday night, Naparima College again made their second consecutive trip to the Larry Gomes Stadium in Malabar, Arima, for the League title after getting past Signal Hill Secondary Comprehensive.
This time around though, they meet the might of San Juan Secondary Comprehensive, who have been in the wilderness of national schools football for 22 years, since their maiden League triumph in 1983.
"Naps" themselves will be looking to claim their second League title. Despite their illustrious Intercol history-Naps are joint leaders with five wins-their sole League success came in 1999, when they completed a sweep of national titles.
Although not very glib on his team's expectations ahead of today's all-important encounter, San Juan manager Philip Fraser made it clear his team was going into the match with only victory on their minds.
"Well, we are definitely looking for a win," Fraser told the Express yesterday. "What we do is take each game as a final and we are preparing for the match the same way we prepared for (semi-final opponents) Mucurapo."
Naparima manager Richard Nagaur said his players were also betting on themselves to emerge victorious in the final.
"Right now we're confident. Signal Hill was a real hurdle, they gave us a good fight and we had some luck. But I think we held it together as a team, (we had) a good team effort.
"We played San Juan in July, a practice match," Nagaur continued. "They were very good. They were very good. We drew 1-1. I would want to believe right now they (San Juan) are the best team in the league. I know we are the underdogs tomorrow (today), but we have nothing to lose. And we are not the team they played in July. We have improved. We have not lost a game for the season."
The team is also looking on to 13-year-old Shahdon Winchester-who scored to keep Naps in the Wednesday's semi-final-and national Under-17 skipper Javed Mohammed to provide some impetus in the attack.
Fraser also indicated his team was hungry for titles.
"We are looking for a clean sweep. Our strength is attacking and the defence is stable. We have about three goalscorers right now on ten (goals). So it's not just one man, its an allround attack we are looking at. The bottom line is we are going out there just as we prepared for Mucurapo."
With both teams highly motivated to take home the trophy, the match promises to be an interesting clash of styles. Whichever way it goes, the winners will collect the silverware from their second National League title at the final whistle.
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