DI­RECTV W Con­nec­tion's at­tempt to end a decade-long drought in the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy will be­gin with a tough pre­lim­i­nary round clash with T&T Pro League ri­vals North East Stars at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, from 6 pm to­day.

Based on the ran­dom draw for­mat, the three-time (1999, 2000 & 2002) win­ner W Con­nec­tion, and Stars, cham­pi­ons in 2003, joined six oth­er clubs in the first round.

How­ev­er, both teams were un­for­tu­nate­ly drawn to face each oth­er in the open­ing round this af­ter­noon and will more than like­ly field weak­ened line-ups due to the un­avail­abilty of key play­ers who were named in the T&T?So­ca War­riors squad for the Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup fi­nals which kicks off in An­tigua & Bar­bu­da on Fri­day (See Page).

Stars and W?Con­nec­tion al­so en­ter the match in con­trast­ing form with the San­gre Grande-based club beat­ing Stoke­ly Vale 4-2 af­ter a 1-1 draw in their Toy­ota Clas­sic semi­fi­nal while the "Savonet­ta Boys" were crushed 3-0 by De­fence Force, both on Fri­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

Oth­er first round match-ups in­clude South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Petrotrin Su­per League cham­pi­ons Point Fortin Civic Cen­tre at home to 2006 win­ners WASA from 3.30 pm at Ma­haica Oval, Pt Fortin; Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Na­tion­al "Big-Five" and Cen­tral Zone cham­pi­ons Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary against South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's Mara­bel­la Fam­i­ly Cri­sis Cen­tre from 3.30 pm at Cara­pichaima and East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's La Hor­quet­ta SA against Po­lice FC (North­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion) from 5 pm at the La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground.

The four win­ners will move in­to the draw for the round-of-32 to be played on Wednes­day De­cem­ber 12.

The round-of-16 will be played on De­cem­ber 19 be­fore head­ing in­to the Christ­mas break with the tour­na­ment re­sum­ing on Wednes­day Jan­u­ary 9 with the quar­ter­fi­nal round.

It's a sec­ond tour­na­ment run­ning, a to­tal of thir­ty-six (36) par­tic­i­pat­ing teams were se­lect­ed for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion run FA Tro­phy with four (4) teams com­ing in from the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League, hence the First Round which cuts the num­ber of teams down to the Round of 32.

Since the for­ma­tion of the Pro League in 2002, on­ly one team out­side the pro­fes­sion­al league has won the pres­ti­gious T&TFF FA Tro­phy when WASA FC of the Su­per League de­feat­ed North East Stars 4-2 on penal­ties fol­low­ing a 3-3 draw to lift the ti­tle in 2006 at Cou­va.

Now with the First Round in ef­fect be­cause of the in­creased num­ber of par­tic­i­pat­ing teams, one of the tour­na­ment's top con­tenders (W Con­nec­tion or North East Stars) will not make it through to the Round of 32.

Com­ment­ing on his team's chances to lift the ti­tle af­ter a decade, W?Con­nec­tion own­er David John-Williams said, "We are ca­pa­ble of win­ning the FA. We are ca­pa­ble of win­ning any com­pe­ti­tion. We have reached six FA fi­nals, win­ning it three times. It's now a sit­u­a­tion where we are against North East Stars and must win to go on be­cause it's a knock­out tour­na­ment.

"The na­ture of the FA Tro­phy is that oth­er teams are mo­ti­vat­ed, and while we want to win every com­pe­ti­tion, we must re­spect that oth­er teams can play as well," end­ed the W Con­nec­tion own­er.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing teams

TT Pro League: Cale­do­nia AIA, De­fence Force, North East Stars, Po­lice FC, St. Ann's Rangers, Cen­tral FC, T&TEC, W Con­nec­tion

Su­per League: Stoke­ly Vale, Ea­gles Unit­ed, WASA FC, Joe Pub­lic, FC San­ta Rosa, West­side Su­per­starz

East­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (EFA): Mal­abar FC, La Hor­quet­ta SA, Joe Pub­lic

South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (SFA): Point Fortin Civic Cen­tre, OJ's Sol­da­do, Mara­bel­la Fam­i­ly Cri­sis Cen­tre

East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union (EC­FU): Guaya Unit­ed FC, Mathu­ra Unit­ed and Va­len­cia Li­ons Youths

North­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (NFA): QPCC, Po­lice FC, Pe­tit Val­ley Unit­ed

Cen­tral Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CFA): Cunu­pia FC, Ed­in­burgh 500, En­ter­prise Youth FC

To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TFA): Rox­bor­ough Lak­ers, Hills Unit­ed, Youth Stars

Sec­ondary School Foot­ball League (SS­FL): St An­tho­ny's Col­lege, Cara­pichaima East, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do, Scar­bor­ough

T&TFF FA?Tro­phy com­pe­ti­tion:

Pre­lim­i­nary round

To­day:

Point Fortin Civic Cen­tre vs WASA FC, Ma­haica Oval, Pt Fortin, 3.30 pm

Cara­pichaima East vs Mara­bel­la Fam­i­ly CC, Cara­pichaima East Sec. Grd, 3.30 pm

La Hor­quet­ta S.A. vs Po­lice (NFA), La Hor­quet­ta Rec. Grd, 5 pm

W Con­nec­tion vs North East Stars, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, 6 pm