Trinidad and Tobago’s Women’s Under 20 and Under 17 teams completed easy 5-1 and 4-0 victories over Barbados’s National Women’s Under 20 team in practice matches last Saturday and Monday at the Marvin Lee Stadium.For the Under 20s, the goals came from Anique Walker (1', 23'), Renelle Findley (37'), Khadidra Debesette (40'), Jonelle Warrick (86') against the “Bajans”.
Coach Richard Hood said despite his team’s dominance, it was still a use exercise.
“I thought that the U20 game vs the Barbados was a useful exercise for our team. It was an opportunity for us to expose a number of new players to international football whilst assessing their ability to play at a higher level and at the same time it offered the opportunity for some members of the U17 World Cup 2010 team to return to the international fold,” he said.
The Under 17s didn’t disappoint in the second game and left a good impression. Their goals came from Anique Walker (7'), Shanisa Camejo (40'), Shanicar Diamond (88'), Khadidra Debesette (90').
U-17 coach Stephan De Four added: "I thought the Barbados team came out with a bit more confidence with their game. They made the game a bit more competitive which was great for us because it lifted our game.
For getting the full team together for the first time to play their first . I think we have a good mix of World Cup and Youth Olympic players on this team it's just bringing them together and have them start gelling. So a great start."
Technical Director Even Pellerud was pleased with the showing from the T&T teams.
“Our players in the Elite Player Pool have eagerly been training over the last 5 months and international competition was long overdue. We contested the Barbados U-20 team with our U-20 team on Saturday and with our U-17 team Monday.
Our teams are at this stage a little bit more fit and tactically mature than Barbados but the matches are competitive and valuable - to all teams! While our U-20 won 5-1, our new U-17 World Cup team proved their talent with a rather convincing win 4-0 Monday afternoon.
At this time, our U-17 team is the better prepared team for this summer and falls CFU events. It is an obvious upside to stage as many as 5 eligible players from our last World Cup team thus providing a higher level of sophistication, understanding and physicality to this team,” Pellerud said.