Shaun Fuentes

For­mer na­tion­al Un­der-17 women's play­er Maya Ma­touk will be em­bark­ing on a new phase in her ca­reer this year af­ter be­ing ac­cept­ed to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tam­pa.

Ma­touk of­fi­cial­ly signed on with the Uni­ver­si­ty hav­ing im­pressed dur­ing her tenure at the IMG Acad­e­my in Flori­da. She is among eight stu­dent-ath­letes signed by Tam­pa a few days ago for the Class of 2015.

Ma­touk, who played for St Ann's Rangers in the lo­cal Women's League, said she was thrilled over her Tam­pa tick­et.

"Uni­ver­si­ty of Tam­pa was one of my top choic­es to study busi­ness be­cause they of­fer a great pro­gramme. While vis­it­ing for a week­end to try out for the team I was im­pressed by the wel­come I re­ceived from the Coach and the play­ers. I felt ex­treme­ly com­fort­able and knew that the Coach would en­cour­age me to im­prove my game tremen­dous­ly," she said.

The for­mer St Joseph's Con­vent stu­dent and ex-mem­ber of the La Fou­cade Coach­ing school said that she has am­bi­tions of rep­re­sent­ing T&T again but al­so has her sights on fur­ther­ing his aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

"My ma­jor is busi­ness and fi­nance. I al­ways loved study­ing busi­ness in High School and I'm look­ing for­ward to learn­ing more in this field. Foot­ball is my pas­sion and I would love to play to the high­est lev­el of my abil­i­ty....I will be proud to put on my T&T jer­sey and rep­re­sent my coun­try. The feel­ings and emo­tions that I felt when I walked on the field at the Con­ca­caf tour­na­ment will live with me for­ev­er. My love for my coun­try and my love for the game will make it a plea­sure to rep­re­sent T&T."

Ma­touk said play­ing for T&T at the U-17 lev­el where they cap­tured the Caribbean ti­tle in Haiti in 2013, pre­pared her for her move to IMG which holds one of the Unit­ed States' top de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes. She al­so cred­it­ed her par­ents Michael and Paula for spurring her on both on and off the foot­ball pitch.

"Play­ing for the U-17 team was a priv­i­lege and I am thank­ful I had the ex­pe­ri­ence to trav­el with them. Play­ing against teams like USA and Cana­da opened my eyes to the lev­el of foot­ball out there, so I knew what I was go­ing in­to when I en­tered IMG Acad­e­my.

"There were quite a few changes as I was not ac­cus­tomed to lift­ing weights as of­ten and my dai­ly train­ing ses­sions were tougher and longer. We trav­el to play friend­ly games on most week­ends as well as com­pet­i­tive games. I am thank­ful I was able to get this op­por­tu­ni­ty be­fore head­ing to Uni­ver­si­ty," she said.

David signs with Kaza­khstan pre­mier club

Na­tion­al se­nior men's de­fend­er Aubrey David agreed to a con­tract with Kaza­khstan Pre­mier League club FC Shakhter Kara­gandy.

David went on tri­al with Shakhter in Turkey dur­ing their pre­sea­son tour at which time he played four match­es for the club over the past cou­ple weeks.

"I'm re­al­ly pleased about this be­cause I had every in­ten­tion to re­turn to Eu­rope af­ter the Caribbean Cup last year and af­ter my deal with Jaro end­ed in Fin­land," David said. "I got this op­por­tu­ni­ty to come on tri­als with Shakhter while they were in pre­sea­son in Turkey and I gave it my best shot. I think the coach­es liked what they saw of me dur­ing the four games and then they of­fered me the con­tract. It's a good step for me be­cause I think play­ing out in Eu­rope on a reg­u­lar ba­sis will help me con­tin­ue to de­vel­op my game. My time in Fin­land def­i­nite­ly helped me last year."

He re­mains com­mit­ted to the na­tion­al se­nior team for the up­com­ing cal­en­dar which in­cludes the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in Ju­ly and the Rus­sia 2018 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign which be­gins for T&T in No­vem­ber.

"I'm al­ways look­ing for­ward to that call from the na­tion­al team.

"So once I'm match ready and free if in­jury, I'll be hop­ing to be part of the team this year for the Gold Cup and the World Cup qual­i­fiers," said David, who fol­lows na­tion­al team­mates Radan­fah Abu Bakr and Robert Primus as those who've played in Kaza­khstan.

?

Jones gets praise from Blake

For­mer Welsh in­ter­na­tion­al Nathan Blake was all praise for Ken­wyne Jones fol­low­ing his goalscor­ing per­for­mance for Cardiff City in their 1-1 draw with Sheffield Wednes­day on the week­end.

Jones's goal was his sev­enth in ten match­es for Cardiff in the Eng­lish Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion. He now has 13 goals this sea­son.

"He's scored sev­en in his last 10 ap­pear­ances and that's an out­stand­ing record for a team in the low­er half of the ta­ble," Blake stat­ed on Wales On­line. Blake is al­so a for­mer Cardiff, Bolton Wan­der­ers, Leices­ter City and Leeds Unit­ed play­er.

"I've heard all the talk about how Ken­wyne needs to be more of a 90-minute play­er, to be charg­ing around the pitch all the time chal­leng­ing here, there and every­where.

"But that's not what Cardiff City need him to be do­ing. Ken­wyne's game is all about win­ning phys­i­cal chal­lenges, scor­ing goals and be­ing a night­mare for op­pos­ing de­fend­ers in the air."

Shaun Fuentes is the di­rec­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the TTFA – shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com