Shaun Fuentes

Fif­teen-year-old Isa­iah Hud­son is the youngest mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Un­der 20 men's team that will be­gin their quest for World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion on Wednes­day against Guade­loupe at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.

He is con­sid­ered the ba­by of the team but has con­sid­er­able ex­pe­ri­ence, hav­ing al­ready been on train­ing stints with AS Ro­ma in Italy in 2014 and As­ton Vil­la last year. He was al­so a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Un­der 17 team at the CON­CA­CAF Fi­nal round in 2015.

"I've been on tri­als with As­ton Vil­la and AS Ro­ma and I was al­so a mem­ber of the last un­der 17 team. Now my fo­cus is go­ing to be with the Un­der 20 team for a tour­na­ment that I am very ex­cit­ed about," said Hud­son who rates Ronald­in­ho as his favourite play­er and is a sup­port­er of Barcelona.

"We have been work­ing very hard in prepar­ing for this tour­na­ment. There is a good vibe in the camp and there is a good amount of love among the play­ers.

"I am ac­tu­al­ly very ex­cit­ed be­cause I have nev­er played in front my home crowd for the na­tion­al team so I'm putting in the ex­tra work to en­sure we get it right from the first game against Guade­loupe," added the Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion mid­field­er.

"I think play­ing in the TT Pro League has been a great ex­pe­ri­ence for me at such a young age. Play­ing for W Con­nec­tion has helped me im­prove my work rate, my speed and my lev­el of play which is some­thing I am con­stant­ly work­ing on. I love to keep the ball so pos­ses­sion foot­ball is my style. It's the Barcelona style and this is how I try to pat­tern my game," Hud­son said.

"Hope­ful­ly it's the kind of foot­ball the na­tion­al team can pro­duce when the tour­na­ment comes around and I will be do­ing my best to help push us on."He will be hop­ing to make his de­but against Guade­loupe in T&T's open­ing fix­ture on Wednes­day from 7:30pm at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.

Dass wants to go one bet­ter with U-20s

Un­der-20 winger Jarred Dass wants to erase the dis­ap­point­ing mem­o­ries of miss­ing out on qual­i­fy­ing for the 2013 FI­FA Un­der-20 World Cup by a sin­gle win by help­ing to in­spire the cur­rent team to qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the 2017 World Cup in South Ko­rea.

Dass, a stand­out for Na­pari­ma Col­lege last sea­son, is one of the US-based play­ers sum­moned by head coach Bri­an Williams to join the 23-man squad for the Caribbean Foot­ball Union Qual­i­fy­ing first round. T&T faces Guade­loupe from 7:30pm and Turks and Caicos tan­gles with St Lu­cia in the open­ing game from 5pm.

Dass was a mem­ber of the T&T Un­der 17 Team which de­feat­ed Cos­ta Ri­ca 2-0 in the CON­CA­CAF Fi­nal round in Pana­ma in 2013 be­fore los­ing 4-2 in their fi­nal match.

"That was re­al­ly dis­ap­point­ing be­cause we made his­to­ry by beat­ing Cos­ta Ri­ca and then we scored first against Pana­ma but they came back re­al­ly strong. We missed out on a chance to go to a World Cup. Now I have an­oth­er chance with the Un­der 20 team which I am re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to. Hope­ful­ly I can play my part in help­ing the team go all the way," Dass said.He added that head coach Bri­an Williams has been han­dling the team in the right man­ner.

"He's been do­ing a good job. The live-in camp last week was very im­por­tant and I felt it was a good de­ci­sion by the coach­es to have the camp.

"For me per­son­al­ly, the first six months with Stony Brook Uni­ver­si­ty in the Unit­ed States has been a step up from play­ing in the Sec­ondary Schools League. I am over there with fel­low Trinida­di­an Mar­te­on Wat­son. The change in lev­el at Stony Brook has been sig­nif­i­cant and hope­ful­ly we can go on to be­come bet­ter play­ers for the fu­ture. Right now my am­bi­tion is to put my best foot for­ward and help T&T qual­i­fy out of this group stage and go all the way to South Ko­rea."

Jo­evin joins Moli­no on MLS All Star Se­lec­tion

Jo­evin Jones has joined coun­try­man Kevin Moli­no on the list of play­ers who have made the fi­nal se­lec­tion for those vy­ing for a pick on the MLS All Star team to face Ar­se­nal on Ju­ly 28.

Moli­no made the cut last month and Jones who has been en­joy­ing a fine run for Seat­tle Sounders in the past few match­es was al­so added to the cast. Jones scored his first goal for Seat­tle in a re­cent 2-0 win over DC Unit­ed.

Both Jones and Moli­no are from Care­nage and are gear­ing up for the Sep­tem­ber 2nd World Cup qual­i­fi­er at home to Guatemala. Both play­ers al­so missed T&T's re­cent match­es against Chi­na, Uruguay and Pe­ru.

"It was a great feel­ing to get my first goal for Seat­tle. And now it feels good to be con­sid­ered for the MLS All Stars. There are some great play­ers up for the picks but hope­ful­ly ei­ther my­self or Kevin (Moli­no) or maybe both of us can make the fi­nal team. As for now we are just both keep­ing fo­cused for our clubs and get­ting ready for the next set of World Cup qual­i­fiers, " Jones said.

Fans can vote on via www.mlssoc­cer.com up un­til Ju­ly 4.

Shaun Fuentes

Dir. of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions

Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion

(868) 681 5429 (mo­bile) 623 9500 (of­fice)

www.TTFoot­ball.Org

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