Shaun Fuentes

T&T se­nior men's team will be aim­ing to live up to all ex­pec­ta­tions on the field and on pa­per at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in Ju­ly af­ter be­ing rat­ed as the num­ber one-ranked team in the Caribbean for this month de­spite its re­cent 1�0 loss to Pana­ma at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.

The So­ca War­riors, coached by Stephen Hart, was ranked 65th in the world by Fi­fa, top in the Caribbean ahead of Ja­maica (75th), Haiti (79th) and An­tigua/Bar­bu­da (106th).

T&T is just ahead of Burk­i­na Fa­so, Bul­gar­ia and Nor­way and right be­hind Pe­ru, Aus­tralia and Re­pub­lic of Ire­land.

T&T is fifth in Con­ca­caf at the mo­ment, with Cos­ta Ri­ca lead­ing the pack, ranked 15th in the world, fol­lowed by Mex­i­co (18th), Unit­ed States (27th) and Pana­ma (53rd).

Hart said he was not moved by the rank­ing, say­ing that his main con­cern was the team's readi­ness for the Gold Cup, which T&T kicks off on Ju­ly 9 against Guatemala in Chica­go.

"Like I said af­ter the Pana­ma game, the im­por­tant thing for me and for the team is the prepa­ra­tion lead­ing up to the Gold Cup which in­cludes at least three prop­er in­ter­na­tion­al match­es and train­ing camps in or­der us for us to re­al­ly go in there and com­pete with the rest of the re­gion," Hart said.

"Of course the rank­ings plays its part its part but it's more im­por­tant for us to straight­en out every­thing in or­der for us to re­al­ly get it right for the Gold Cup and the World Cup qual­i­fiers which are right around the cor­ner."

Moli­no main­tains ground

af­ter Ka­ka's cred­it

T&T mid­field­er Kevin Moli­no is keep­ing his feet on the ground and his head out of the skies days af­ter re­ceiv­ing a rec­om­men­da­tion from Brazil­ian star Ka­ka as a good pick for Ital­ian club AC Mi­lan.

Ka­ka's com­ments re­ceived wide­spread cov­er­age in the me­dia as he was record­ed as say­ing in an in­ter­view with the Ital­ian mag­a­zine Gazzetta del­lo Sport, "Kevin Moli­no, he's from Trinidad, a good for­ward. He must grow and learn, but he could do well."

And what did Moli­no think about the words from one of Brazil's foot­balling stars? Well, he's ho­n­oured but not car­ried away.

"It's a big deal when some­one like Ka­ka says some­thing like that about you. I was a bit sur­prised when I saw the re­port but I know he is some­one who likes to en­cour­age you and he wants the best for me and the rest of the team as team-mates. He's been through it all and now he's in a state where he can help and in­spire. For me, there's noth­ing bet­ter for my ca­reer at the mo­ment," Moli­no said.

"He's been great on the train­ing field and in the dress­ing room and of course you can see he's set­tled in on the field so far in the sea­son. I think we will con­tin­ue to grow and get bet­ter as the match­es come along."

Moli­no set up Or­lan­do's open­ing goal in their 2�0 win over Port­land Tim­bers on the week­end. His firm cross was chest­ed in­to the goal by Cana­di­an for­ward Cyle Lar­in on 30 min­utes. Ka­ka con­vert­ed a penal­ty to seal the win and push Or­lan­do to third place in the East­ern Con­fer­ence.

Stern says foot­ball

pas­sion reignit­ed

For­mer na­tion­al team for­ward Stern John says his ac­tive role in the T&T Foot­ball 7 Acad­e­my, which was launched last Sat­ur­day in Trinci­ty, has reignit­ed his pas­sion for the game.

John, T&T's all-time top scor­er with 70 goals, has been away from the pro­fes­sion­al game for just around four years. But now in his role as head coach of the T&T 7s Acad­e­my which caters for kids be­tween the ages of 5-17 years old, the for­mer Sun­der­land strik­er is once again buzzing round the foot­ball pitch.

"I've been away from the game for a long time and this has def­i­nite­ly opened my ap­petite for the game again. I think I've found my pas­sion back. I love the game and it's an ho­n­our com­ing out here to work with the kids and hope­ful­ly I can help de­vel­op a cou­ple good play­ers for T&T," John said.

"We got a fan­tas­tic re­sponse to start the acad­e­my Hope­ful­ly we can con­tin­ue en­cour­ag­ing more kids to come out and start learn­ing more about the game and im­prov­ing their lev­el and to en­joy the game more es­pe­cial­ly the younger ones, "the ex-Crys­tal Palace man said.

John will al­so be shar­ing the ex­pe­ri­ences of his play­ing ca­reer with the young play­ers in the acad­e­my and pro­vid­ing tips and ad­vice on the game. He in­tends to work close­ly on goal fin­ish­ing with the po­ten­tial for­wards. Goal scor­ing has proven to be a chal­lenge for T&T na­tion­al teams, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the youth lev­el and there's no bet­ter for­ward in T&T colours from which to learn the art of scor­ing goals.

The for­mer Southamp­ton for­ward along with his sup­port staff will con­duct ses­sions Mon­days, Wednes­days, Fri­days from 5-7 pm and Sat­ur­day morn­ings from 8-10 am at the T&T Foot­ball 7 Acad­e­my base at the Hen­ry Street Recre­ation Ground in Trinci­ty. Fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the acad­e­my can be ob­tained by call­ing 488-7001 or 485-7001.

Chica­go boss: Jo­evin can go places

A week af­ter Jo­evin Jones made the MLS "Team of the Week" af­ter his goal scor­ing per­for­mance for Chica­go Fire, club head coach Frank Yal­lop says the for­mer W Con­nec­tion play­er "has the tal­ent to re­al­ly go places".

"I think from day one he has shown his qual­i­ty," Yal­lop told MLSsoc­cer.com af­ter at Toy­ota Park on Thurs­day. "And it's not just in match­es he's very good, in train­ing too he's very clean on the ball, en­gaged in every­thing we're try­ing to do de­fen­sive­ly and of­fen­sive­ly, and he's very eas­i­ly coached. I'm very hap­py for him, he's a good kid and he has the tal­ent to re­al­ly go places."

The 23-year old T&T se­nior team play­er al­so came in for some com­men­da­tion from his team­mates, in­clud­ing cap­tain Jeff Lar­en­tow­icz, who said: "He's played two dif­fer­ent spots and done re­al­ly well at both I don't think it's easy to go from an at­tack­er to a de­fend­er from game to game and he's done it pret­ty well. When he's at­tacked, he's set up a goal in San Jose and scored against Toron­to, and when he's de­fend­ed he's done re­al­ly well, so he's been very good for us."

"He's so cre­ative," for­ward Har­ry Shipp added. "He's a de­fend­er but he's got a much more at­tack­ing brain than most de­fend­ers do in this league.

Shaun Fuentes is the di­rec­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion � shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com