U-23

BRIAN LEWIS, president of the TT Olympic Committee (TTOC), said yesterday the decision of the TT Football Association (TTFA) to withdraw the national men’s Under-23 team from the Concacaf qualifiers goes against Government’s policy.

The Trinidad and Tobago National Under-23 Men’s football team was effectively eliminated from the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games last night after ending on the wrong side of a 5-1 spanking from Paraguay at the Hamilton Pan American Soccer Stadium.

The TTFA has regrettably withdrawn its participation from this year’s CONCACAF Men’s U23 Olympic Qualifiers and has decided to focus its resources on other competitions for the rest of 2019.

Despite losing their opening match 4-0 to Uruguay at the ongoing Pan American Games on Monday, Trinidad and Tobago Men’s Under 23 head coach Zoran Vranes is backing his team to come back strongly in their remaining matches against Paraguay and Mexico.

Trinidad and Tobago has been drawn in Group B of the CONCACAF Men’s Olympic Qualifying tournament. This country will come up against US Virgin Islands, Cuba and Barbados. This is the Caribbean phase of qualifiers from which the leading teams from four groups will advance to the CONCACAF Final Round following which the top two nations will qualify for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan.

Sport Minister Brent Sancho revealed today that the Government hopes to acquire live feeds for the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup in time for Trinidad and Tobago’s opening match against Guatemala on Thursday July 9.

The Trinidad and Tobago National Under-23 Team did promise a strike. In the end, they produced two, although not quite in the way anyone expected.

The Trinidad and Tobago Women’s National Senior Team’s threatened boycott of the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games, due to a match fees row, hogged the sport media spotlight for the past two days.