ONCE considered the best female goalkeeper in Trinidad and Tobago, 35 year-old veteran Nicole Mitchell has earned a recall to the national senior women's team preparing for the 2010 CONCACAF Women's World Cup qualifying tournament, to be held from October 28-November 8 in Cancún and Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Shantel Roberts, a goalkeeper with recently crowned 2010 FA Trophy winners Real Dimension, Jemelia Mathlin and another veteran, defender Patrice Rose, have also been called up. Training kicks off on Monday evening at the Marvin Lee Stadium.
The eight-team competition, formerly known as the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup, will send both finalists to the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup in Germany, while the tournament's third-place finishers will face the fifth place team from Europe in a home-and-away series for a World Cup spot. The 16-team 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup tournament will be held in nine German cities from June 26 -July 17.
After round-robin play within the groups in the qualifying tournament, the top two teams in each of the group will cross over for the all-important semi-finals, with the first-place team in Group A facing the second place team in Group B and vice-versa.
T&T are in Group A alongside hosts Mexico, Canada and Guyana and will play in the 9,000-seat Estadio Beto Ávila in Cancún.The United States have been drawn in Group B along with Costa Rica, Haiti and Guatemala.
While Shabazz trains the seniors for their own World Cup, he will also be keeping an eye on the upcoming FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup with a view to seeing if he might be able to use any of the junior girls in the senior World Cup qualifying.
"This is a very exciting moment for women's football in T&T and the seniors will be watching the games and giving full support to the U-17 team. We would also give them assignments so that they can look at it as technicians and not just supporters. But while we follow our U-17's, we must also focus on our preparations since we are not as fortunate as them. We are not hosting the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, we have to qualify for it and that is a huge task, added Shabazz.
Shabazz revealed that a squad of 20 players will be selected for the Gold Cup in October and the technical staff will also have "at least 10 foreign-based players along with members of the current U-17 team to choose from as well.
"We have deliberately kept the training squad numbers down because we want a really competitive environment. We are monitoring the foreign-based players who are into their school season and for sure I expect a couple U-17's to sneak into the senior squad as well."