TTFF hunt for young goalkeepers.
By Nigel Simon (Guardian).
Lincoln Phillips, technical director of the T&T Football Federation, has invited young goalkeepers to make themselves available for future national selection, by attending the three-day camp at the Marvin Lee Stadium, Macoya and the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva.
The camp starts tomorrow with two sessions at the Macoya venue from 9am to 12 noon and 2pm to 4pm. On Thursday and Friday, the camp will be held at the Ato Boldon Stadium, from 9am to 12 noon and 2pm to 4pm.
Phillips was busy yesterday finalising plans for the three-day camp involving 19 US-based national Under-23 players and 20 home based. He said:
“The camp will only be an invitation for young goalkeepers because we are intent on making a conservative effort to improve the level of goalkeeping in the country.
“However, we have already stated that apart from the goalkeeping department, the camp will not be an open invitation, but has been arranged to check the progress of some young players based at colleges in the USA who have been invited personally.
“There are also the local players who were recommended to us from the Secondary Schools Football League and those who were part of the previous national Under-20 team, who we will be looking at.”
During the camp, Ron La Forest and Michael Mc Commie, who have been recommended to be coaches of the T&T Under-23 team (Olympic), will also have a chance to work with the players.
La Forest is a former national player and coach of the Under-20 and senior teams and Mc Commie, an ex-national goalkeeper, is current manager of Super League champion club Joe Public.
The other local coaches at the camp will be Anton Corneal, recently appointed to the Soca Warriors coaching staff as an assistant coach, and Soca Warriors’ goalkeeping coach, Michael Maurice. Phillips will also serve as coach/scout during the camp.
It is the first “winter break” training camp organised by the T&TFF and caters for players born on, or after January 1, 1985.
Phillips noted that T&T has a number of good players attending colleges in the US who return home for the holiday break, which presents a wonderful opportunity to identify, evaluate, and track the progress of the players who can represent the country in the qualifiers for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Phillips said that the main purpose of the camp was to identify, evaluate and link with players towards preparing the Under-23 team for the 2006 Central American Caribbean Games and 2007 Pan American Games.
The Under-21 training camp is part of the GOAL 2014 Project, Phillips’ initiative, which aims to have every T&T national football team qualify for every Fifa tournament by the year 2014.
Phillips emphasised the important role of establishing a world-wide network that can assist the T&TFF in identifying youth and senior players. Another area of the camp will see well-known sports psychologist, Dr Margaret Ottley, conducting sessions with the players.
