Help us, please
They have reached the final leg of an historic first World Cup qualification, and the Trinidad and Tobago’s senior women’s footballers are begging for financial assistance.
In six weeks’ time, they play the final round of qualifying for next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada. Football pundits are confident this campaign represents T&T’s best chance to qualify for the first time for the World Cup. Yet, no good corporate citizen has as yet stepped forward to assist the team.
Needs range from a six-week training camp, to warm-up matches, to proper nutrition and water.
“Sometimes it’s not even financial (help needed). It’s Nestle (for instance) giving us some protein drinks after training sessions. Water, Gatorade, those things,” said the captain Maylee Attin-Johnson.
“They have to be blind to not see that we are moving to qualify. I hope they help us. I hope they hear us now,” Atttin-Johnson added. “With or without the support, we are going to qualify."
The Soca Princesses captain hopes that beating Jamaica 1-0 and winning the first-ever Women’s Caribbean Cup two nights ago — a historic event in its own right- stirs the passions of the local business community.
So far, some help has come from abroad. The kit the women wear is sponsored by JOMA, a Spanish clothing manufacturer, while even the head coach, American Randy Waldrum, has made an investment in the Soca Princesses.
A highly-rated coach with 279 wins and two national titles with US school Notre Dame at college level, Waldrum should be on vacation now, having just last week ended a tough season as head coach of the Houston Dash, a professional women’s club playing at the highest level in the United States. Instead, he coached T&T free of charge.
“Eight teams and three-and-a-half (qualifying) spots. I think this is the best opportunity in the next ten years (for Trinidad and Tobago) to qualify,” stated Waldrum, who as recent as 2013 , coached the United States women’s Under-23 team.
“I can’t think of a more deserving group than this group. They are talented, passionate and committed,” Waldrum added. “Many of them spent ten, 12 years of their lives to have this one dream come through and I want to be a small part of it.”
Waldrum further echoed the need for help before the final qualifiers.
“We desperately need the six weeks to be together as much as we can. That is why the local community who supported us so great tonight can help us. We need help funding it and we need all the help we can to generate the resources we need to go six weeks, Waldrum said.
”I appreciate the fans’ support tonight. I have so many nice comments from the fans congratulating us on the job we’ve done. Everybody’s happy with what they have seen.”
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‘Princesses’ crowned Caribbean ‘Queens’
By Ian Prescott (Express).
The Reggae Girlz probably felt set upon by a bunch of football bullies, when losing the first edition of the Women’s Caribbean Cup 1-0 to Trinidad and Tobago’s Soca Princesses, the senior women’s national football team, at the Hasely Crawford on Tuesday night.
T&T won all four matches played, scoring 21 times while not conceding a single goal, on the way to being crowned first-ever Caribbean champions in women’s football. Not that it was one-sided in any way. It was a worthy final, nail-biting and hard-fought.
After being outplayed for much of the first half, Jamaica fought back, especially late, when they were firing on all cylinders. They would have done anything to get one of the 17 goals scored against their opponents in the group phase.
But, the closest they got was when Arin King’s defensive header bounced off Jamaican striker Shakira Duncan and struck the T&T crossbar. Jamaica only really got this close again when Kenesha Reid’s low shot just beat the far post in the dying stages of the match.
The tournament’s ‘Most Valuable Player’ US-based T&T college player Mariah Shade, got the lone goal, her sixth of the tournament. And it was an early one too, scored in just the eighth minute, when Shade put a well-placed finish onto an over-the-top pass from Tasha St Louis, whose seven goals earned her the finals’ ‘Golden Boot’ award.
In fact, the hosts swept all the awards, including ‘Best Goalkeeper’—though Tobago-born Kamika Forbes owed much to her central defenders Arin King, Rhea Belgrave and the injured Ayanna Russell, giving her virtually nothing to do throughout the tournament. Forbes clearly did not make as much saves in the tournament than St Kitts-Nevis custodian Tynetta McCoy, who despite conceding ten against T&T saved her teammates as many times.
King especially, was a rock throughout the tournament. The Canada-born T&T defender, calm and assured, the perfect defender a goalie would want holding the line. On at least three occasions, King was the only obstacle between Jamaica star Duncan and a goal. Once, pacey Duncan got ahead onto an overhead pass.
Caught on the wrong side, King switched just in time to put in a decisive tackle, just as the Jamaican looked for her 15th goal (entire tournament). Later King, lunged in, but got such good position on Duncan, it gave the no-nonsense Cuban referee Irazema Aguilera no choice, but to dismiss the Jamaican appeals for a penalty. Someone mentioned “Trinidad’s Franco Berrazi, comparing King to the legendary Italian and AC Milan defender.
T&T played sweet football, almost ticky-tacky like the Spanish, and controlling the first half hour. After trying to ambush the Soca Princesses in the opening seconds, Jamaican were forced to retreat and defend until the storm passed.
They conceded a goal, but Jamaica defended well, shutting out the dangerous Kennya Cordner out of the match. Under similar pressure, deep-lying T&T playmaker Karen Forbes neither defended nor attacked well. But, as Jamaica emerged an attacking force in the second half, T&T fought wholeheartedly, until Shade dropped to the floor exhausted.
“I’m proud of Caribbean women(s) football. It was a great final,” stated Merron Gordon, Jamaica’s head-coach. “Both Trinidad and Jamaica are where they should be now. Hopefully, at least one of us will be in the World Cup.”
Likewise, T&T’s American head-coach Randy Waldrum thought it was a competitive final. “I think we played a great side in Jamaica. I think we saw a bit tonight; the fact that they had been together most of the summer in Miami,” Waldrum said.
“It wasn’t our best performance, but we needed a game like this where we were going to get stretched, so we could find out the area we needed to work on. But having said that, we are proud of the effort of the girls to have scored 21 goals and not given anything up.”