Shaun Fuentes

It's not every­day you have broth­ers ex­celling for their coun­try in dif­fer­ent sport­ing dis­ci­plines. Of course we've had broth­ers suc­ceed­ing for a na­tion­al team in a par­tic­u­lar sport, whether it be foot­ball or crick­et, from the Gan­gas (Dar­ren and Sher­win) to the Phillips (Win­ston and Lin­coln), from the Josephs (Sed­ley and Alan) to the Davis' (Bri­an and Char­lie) who al­so had a sis­ter Alana who played hock­ey for T&T. The list can go on. His­to­ry shows Keno and Stoke­ly Ma­son and Clint and Dwight Yorke among those where one played crick­et and the oth­er foot­ball for T&T. And the lat­est duo in such po­si­tion is na­tion­al mid­field­er Kevin Moli­no and broth­er Kevon Coop­er who is the lat­est at­trac­tion in the In­di­an Pre­mier Crick­et League with Ra­jasthan Roy­als. Coop­er starred for T&T in re­cent T20 com­pe­ti­tions and is now earn­ing rave re­views in the IPL while Moli­no has been tipped to be T&T's next gen­er­al in the mid­field. Moli­no struck a beaver­trick in a 9-1 win over Suri­name to seal T&T's qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the fi­nal round of Con­ca­caf Olympic qual­i­fi­ca­tion dur­ing which he was al­so T&T's best play­er, scor­ing against Mex­i­co. He net­ted a 90th minute goal on the week­end in Or­lan­do City's 2-0 win over Char­lotte Ea­gles in the Unit­ed States USL Pro Di­vi­sion.

Coop­er mean­time snapped up sev­en wick­ets in two match­es in In­dia. He was fea­tured in ES­PN cricin­fo and the Hin­dus­tan Times on Mon­day. "We've been play­ing foot­ball for as long as we could re­mem­ber but he chose crick­et and I de­cid­ed to stick with the foot­ball. But sport was in our blood from since 'we young' and we sup­port each oth­er as much as we can," Moli­no said. "He's do­ing his thing in In­dia and I'm try­ing to do my best in the US and hope­ful­ly move on to even big­ger things in the fu­ture." The 23-year-old Coop­er re­layed that he choose crick­et for good on be­ing se­lect­ed for the T&T un­der 19 crick­et team af­ter be­ing per­suad­ed by his fa­ther. Bri­an Lara is his idol while Rus­sell Lat­apy is Moli­no's favourite. "I come from a fam­i­ly of foot­ballers but my Dad helped me choose crick­et," said Coop­er who was seen wait­ing in the lob­by of a five-star ho­tel in Jaipur drib­bling a foot­ball be­fore re­porters. "We'd like to bring more to the game like they did and hope­ful­ly help T&T achieve some kind of suc­cess on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage again," added the 21-year-old Moli­no who helped T&T qual­i­fy for the 2007 FI­FA Un­der 17 World Cup with a lone win­ner against Ja­maica in Kingston and al­so played at the 2009 FI­FA Un­der 20 World Cup in Egypt. As for Coop­er's short term dream, "Sachin's Ten­dulkar's wick­et" he quick­ly added.

US women pre­pare for T&T

The Unit­ed States Women's Un­der 17 team is hard in prepa­ra­tion for their 2012 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing match against T&T in Guatemala City next month. The Amer­i­cans, who did not qual­i­fy for the 2010 World Cup in T&T, drew 0-0 with Chi­na's Un­der 20 team at the US Olympic Train­ing Cen­tre in Cal­i­for­nia on Mon­day to close off a ten-day train­ing camp. It was their fourth straight game with­out los­ing, as they de­feat­ed Hol­land and France 2-0 and drew with Eng­land 1-1 in Spain last month. T&T's Un­der 17s are al­so in train­ing for the tour­na­ment un­der coach Even Pellerud. They fell 3-0 to Cana­da in two games in To­ba­go cou­ple weeks ago and will be strength­ened by the ad­di­tion of a few over­seas-based play­ers as they head in­to a train­ing camp in Fort Laud­erdale be­fore go­ing to Guatemala City where they al­so face Ba­hamas and Mex­i­co. "We're do­ing the best that we can in terms of get­ting the girls ready. We've played two games against Cana­da and we will al­so play against some strong Uni­ver­si­ty teams in Fort Laud­erdale. Right now we are fo­cus­ing on some ar­eas that will see us get to a lev­el of readi­ness for the tour­na­ment. "It will be very tough hav­ing to play the US and Mex­i­co but we have a good squad with some ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers from the last World Cup and we'll give it our best shot," Pellerud said.

Yorke gets Sir Alex's bless­ing

Dwight Yorke has had the bless­ing of Sir Alex Fer­gu­son as he chalks up his coach­ing ex­pe­ri­ence with the coach­ing staff for Man­ches­ter Unit­ed's re­serve team. Yorke spoke to re­porters in Jakar­ta last week while on a trip there as an am­bas­sador for Man­ches­ter Unit­ed. He's pur­su­ing more coach­ing badges along­side Unit­ed Re­serve coach War­ren Joyce. "I'm there to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work along­side War­ren Joyce. They're help­ing me com­plete my coach­ing badges. I have a great un­der­stand­ing there. Ob­vi­ous­ly, Sir Alex gave me his bless­ing to work along­side Joyce. I've gained a lot of knowl­edge with­in the game, so I can give back some­thing,whether

(it) is in man­age­ment or coach­ing. It's some­thing that I'd like to pur­sue at some stage, which is why I'm do­ing my coach­ing badges," Yorke said. Yorke added that he favoured Barcelona to win the Cham­pi­ons League. "Clear­ly Barcelona, be­cause of what they're do­ing. They have the best play­er in the world, but Bay­ern Mu­nich are al­so strong and I like the bal­ance of their team," he said.

Pelti­er nets in Slo­va­kia

Na­tion­al play­er Lester Pelti­er seems to have re­gained his scor­ing touch and is back to full fit­ness fol­low­ing a knee surgery ear­li­er this year. The speedy winger net­ted a 54th minute item to help AS Trencin trounce FC Ni­tra 5-2 in the Slo­vak Su­perli­ga on Sat­ur­day. Bel­gium-based mid­field­er Khaleem Hy­land al­so saw full ac­tion in Rac­ing Genk's 2-0 win over Gent. Hy­land was cau­tioned in the 55th minute. On Mon­day, Ja­son Scot­land scored in Ip­swich Town's 2-1 loss to Leices­ter City.

Both Scot­land and Car­los Ed­wards played the full game. Back to reg­u­lar play­ing is goal­keep­er Kelvin Jack. He lined up for Ket­ter­ing Town in a 3-0 loss to Mans­field Town in the Eng­lish Con­fer­ence League on Sat­ur­day. Mean­time, Justin Fo­jo al­so played the full 90 in Puer­to Ri­co Is­landers' 1-0 win over Tam­pa Bay Row­dies in the North Amer­i­can Soc­cer League. And over in the Sin­ga­pore S League, Fa­bi­en Lewis saw full ac­tion for his Wood­lands Welling­ton in their 2-2 draw with Sin­ga­pore Armed Forces on Thurs­day.

Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for So­ca War­riors/TTFF. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com