ANGUS Eve, head coach of Trinidad and Tobago’s senior men football team, called on his TT-based crop of players to seize the opportunity to impress at the upcoming two away international friendlies against Jamaica on March 11 and 14.
Eve is urging his domestic group to use this short tour as their chance to break into the senior team ahead of TT’s Concacaf Nations League and Gold Cup qualifiers versus Bahamas in Nassau on March 24 and against Nicaragua on March 27 at the Dwight Yorke Stadium, Tobago.
This comes after the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), on Tuesday, confirmed they would play host to the Soca Warriors at the Montego Bay Sports Complex in Catherine Hall and then at the National Stadium in Kingston. The matches were agreed upon last week.
Both matches fall outside of the FIFA international window.
“It’s an opportunity for me to look at the locally-based players again, an opportunity for them to get some much-needed experience against higher ranked opposition. We are at a rebuilding stage,” Eve said.
Three weeks ago, the domestic group beat Saint Martin 2-0 in a friendly – their first test for 2023. Eve credited their spirited performance against the Dutch island but anticipates a tougher contest against Jamaica.
During the pandemic, the JFF were swift to resume their local premier league, in 2021. However, in TT, since domestic football stopped in early 2020, owing to the pandemic, it finally resumes with the new TT Premier Football League (TTPFL) on March 10.
“They (Jamaica) are in the A zone of the Nations League and we’re in B, so having this opportunity, when our guys haven’t played football for the past year and a half, is good.
“Now they’re going to get another chance against the Jamaicans, to try to make the senior TT team. That’s why we’ve organised these matches leading into the Gold Cup qualifications.
“Against St Martin, I thought they did credibly well seeing that the St Martin team had 12 players playing in the French League, lower leagues, but they were playing, and our guys weren’t playing any football at all. I thought they showed a good account of themselves.”
Since the TTPFL was announced two weeks ago, Eve released his local group of players back to their clubs to continue preparations.
The 23-man national team that will be selected for the Jamaica clash will not feature for their respective clubs in the opening TTPFL matches. They will head into a five-day national training and pre-tournament camp before they travel up the Caribbean.
“The league is starting on March 10. What we try to do is liaise with the clubs and train on Mondays and Tuesdays, and the clubs have the other five days, because we don’t want to interfere with their preparation too much.
“Now that all the teams locally are training, playing practice matches and so on, so they should be a little bit more match fit. But competitive football has not started yet so we’re using these opportunities to see how they come up against a Jamaican outfit, who it’s also said is a local group (of player
