"One way or the other, we are going to try and win this game against Mexico," national women's football coach Richard Hood assured, yesterday.
The two teams clash tonight at 7 pm at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, Port-of-Spain in the final match in Group 'A' of the Concacaf Women's Gold Cup Qualifiers.
The Mexicans hammered T&T 6-0 in the first meeting between the teams on September 26 and now lead the group with nine points from three wins in as many matches.
Puerto Rico holds on to second on the standings with four points with a win (2-1) and a tie (0-0) against the Women Warriors. The local team is at the bottom of the chart on a point from three matches. However, T&T has a slim chance of overtaking the Puerto Ricans on goal difference if they can beat the Mexicans by five clear goals.
Hood believes they can but highlighted several issues his team has been plagued by during their preparations, including not having access to train at the Stadium, despite it being their home game tonight.
"Well, I really don't know how that becomes an advantage for us. It's an advantage from the point of view that we're not playing 8,000 feet high altitude, but the national stadium is our home base but we don't train there," said Hood, yesterday.
"We have not trained there, so the pitch is not an advantage for us, it might be some sort of advantage if we have support from our fans or whatever, but it's not really an advantage playing at the Hasely Crawford Stadium. We have not had the advantage of training at the stadium. The stadium has been rented out for school football and other things, other activities, but the national team does not have access to it.
"We have not touched that pitch since the Puerto Rico games," Hood explained. Those matches were played in late October (October 27 and October 31).
Besides that, Hood's preparation was also paralysed by the late arrival of most of his foreign-based stars who make up some 90 percent of the starting team tonight.
The top two teams will qualify for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, a position that appeared relatively attainable at the start, but Hood's inability to secure his key players abroad in time during training sessions worked against him.
"I am never really satisfied with our preparation, it's a bit of a difficult situation given that quite a number of players who will be starting the game do not reside in T&T, therefore we only had a short opportunity to work with them. This camp was a five-day camp, that was the best we could have done under the circumstances," said the national coach.
"It's always sort of difficult to get yourself organised the way you would like, which is five days or seven sessions. To add to that, a couple of players only came in yesterday, so basically they would have only done yesterday's session and the half session that we have today (yesterday), so you know we have to work around those challenges."
Hood also explained: "We have done the work, so I think it's really up to the players to go and interpret the work we would have done and see how best they can execute it on the pitch."
From the outlook, today's requested five-goal win for the Women's Warriors will provide a major challenge, however, Hood promised they will take a positive approach against the Mexicans, as they try to counter their attacking power while mounting serious attacks of their own to get the required result.
T&T Team:
Goalkeepers:
Simone Eligon, Malaika Dedier, K'Lil Keshwar
Defenders:
Shauna Lee Giovia, Britney Williams, Crystal Mollineaux, Tamara Johnson, Jonelle Cato, Victoria Swift, Abbigail Moos, Chrissy Mitchell
Midfielders:
Chelcy Ralph, Naomie Guerra, Renee Mike, Zoe Maxwell, Karyn Forbes, Sarah De Gannes
Forwards:
Orielle Martin, Asha James, J'Eleisha Alexander, Tori Paul, Tsaianne Leander, Maria-Frances Serrant
Group A
Pos*Team*M*P*W*D*L*Gf*Ga*GD*Pts
1*Mexico*3*3*0*0*11*1*10*9
2*Puerto Rico*4*1*1*2*3*6*-3*4
3*T&T*3*0*1*2*1*8*-7*1
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Tough task for Women Warriors in final Gold Cup qualifier vs Mexico.
By Roneil Walcott (T&T Newsday).
As his Trinidad and Tobago women’s football team face an improbable task against Mexico in their final Concacaf women’s Gold Cup qualifier at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, on Tuesday, head coach Richard Hood is calling for more support for the locally based players in the programme.
T&T must defeat Mexico by four goals if they are to advance to the preliminary round of the inaugural 2024 Women’s Gold Cup. T&T currently sit at the foot of the three-team League A group with one point. Mexico lead the group with a 100 percent record from their three matches and have rattled in 11 goals in the process. Puerto Rico are in second spot in the group on four points and have a goal difference of -3. The cellar-placed T&T team have a -7 goal difference following two defeats and a draw.
Hood’s team now face the unenviable task of defeating a Mexico team that handed them a 6-0 defeat in their opening group match on September 26 in Pachuca.
“At the best of times, it is a difficult task to beat Mexico, much less to beat them by about four clear goals,” Hood told the media on Monday. “For me, it is not necessarily a realistic possibility, but it is a possibility. “We are going to approach the game positively and we are going to try and get a victory. We are asking the girls to be as brave as possible and execute what we have done in training and hopefully, we will get the result we are looking for.”
Hood described the first Mexico outing as a “baptism of fire.” He has since pointed to “incremental improvements” from the Women Warriors. With T&T scoring just one goal in their first three matches – via the suspended Alexcia Ali – managing a four-goal win against the 36th-ranked Mexico team will take something extraordinary or miraculous. T&T are ranked 75th by Fifa. “We have to follow the game plan. When we have the possibility of attacking, we have to commit. When we are defending as well, the transition moments are going to be critical offensively and defensively.”
Hood expects to see a different women’s team against Mexico this time around, as he says this is the strongest unit he has had for the campaign. “I expect the organisation to be better than our first game against Mexico. I would like to see improvements in the fitness levels as well. “We will not be playing at 8,000 feet altitude this time. That was a factor in the first game. I would like to see more composure and our ability to move the ball offensively and the ability to move and operate collectively as an offensive and defensive unit.”
Hood is looking towards the future with his T&T team, and says the schoolgirl pair of J’Eleisha Alexander and Orielle Martin are likely to see minutes depending on the game situation. Alexander, 16, and Martin, 15, were voted among the Secondary Schools Football League’s (SSFL) top five girls players for the 2022 season. Alexander won the MVP award. As he looks beyond this ongoing campaign, Hood says more exposure needs to be given to the local players.
“For this programme to progress, we have to maintain a local base. We have to train continuously to improve the players we have locally.
“We have to make use of the Fifa windows. We could start small by playing Guyana or Grenada and we go from there. Again, we are seeing tremendous improvements in the local players in a very short time. It is critical for us to continue that development as we go forward.”
The top team in each of the three League A groups will qualify for the group stage of the February-March 2024 Concacaf Women’s Gold Cup tournament. The three runners-up in the League A groups will play the three winners of the respective League B groups for a spot in the Gold Cup group stage.
Kick-off is at 7 pm.