Shaun Fuentes

New­com­er in the Trinidad and To­ba­go team, Je­lani Pe­ters, is hav­ing the time of his foot­ball ca­reer up­on his re­cent call up for the two World Cup qual­i­fy­ing games against Cos­ta Ri­ca and Hon­duras.The W Con­nec­tion play­er has had one pre­vi­ous op­por­tu­ni­ty to train with the Na­tion­al Un­der 23 team but was ruled out be­cause of in­jury.

Pe­ters re­layed some of the in­spir­ing fac­tors in his life so far with his de­ceased mom at the top of his list. Vanes­sa Pe­ters passed away on De­cem­ber 22, 2014.

"My en­tire fam­i­ly, my mom es­pe­cial­ly, have been big in­spi­ra­tions in my life. She passed away two years ago. I'm do­ing it for her. She had a mass that was block­ing her eye­sight in her right eye. She was away on va­ca­tion by my sis­ter in the US. Then they did a surgery on the Dec 4, 2014. The op­er­a­tion wasn't suc­cess­ful. She passed on Dec 22, 2014," Pe­ters ex­plained.

"But now I am thank­ful that through foot­ball I have been able to move on and this is my fo­cus in life.

"I start­ed off with a small com­mu­ni­ty team by the name of Metro Stars. I played for my school Tran­quil­li­ty Gov­ern­ment and St Ann's Rangers Un­der 18s, Jabloteh re­serve then back to Rangers. Now I am at W Con­nec­tion," Pe­ters added. His foot­ball idols are David Al­a­ba and team­mate Shel­don Bateau.

Pe­ters will be hop­ing to make his de­but for T&T in to­day's World Cup qual­i­fi­er against Cos­ta Ri­ca at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um at 7pm.

Jo­mal ea­ger to im­press for Hart's team

Mex­i­can-based mid­field­er Jo­mal Williams says that the big stage of the CON­CA­CAF Fi­nal Round will not get to him.Williams, for­mer­ly of W Con­nec­tion, has played in a CON­CA­CAF Fi­nal round be­fore but at the Un­der 17 lev­el. This is his high­est lev­el of play for the se­nior team.

"Of course it's a great feel­ing to be play­ing for my coun­try in the fi­nal round of World Cup qual­i­fiers. It's a grand stage but I am stay­ing fo­cused. I am one of the younger play­ers in the team but I am hap­py about my state of mind and my com­po­sure. I will play my role in what­ev­er way and I will be ready to grab my chance when the coach calls on me," said Williams who plays for Mur­ciela­gos FC along with T&T team­mates Yohance Mar­shall and Shah­don Win­ches­ter.

"For me per­son­al­ly, play­ing in Mex­i­co has been a great thing for me and it has helped in prepar­ing for me for this lev­el and for the ex­pec­ta­tions. Of course my friends and team­mates in Mex­i­co know that we will have to play them twice in this round and they have been telling me how dif­fi­cult it will be but I am con­fi­dent in my team and I think once we con­tin­ue to build as a team we will reach our des­ti­na­tion,"Williams added.

Bir­chall back­ing T&Tin qual­i­fiers

For­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er Chris Bir­chall is back­ing the cur­rent team to re­turn to the glo­ry of World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion. The for­mer Port Vale and LA Galaxy play­er was a mem­ber of the his­toric T&T side which qual­i­fied for the 2006 World Cup Fi­nals in Ger­many.

Bir­chall joined the T&T side for its fourth qual­i­fy­ing game in the fi­nal round, against Pana­ma at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um. Now re­tired from in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball, Bir­chall is throw­ing his sup­port be­hind the T&T team.

"I speak to Ken­wyne and ask how they're do­ing," Bir­chall said. "He says this is the on­ly squad he's been con­fi­dent in since the 2006 World Cup. Af­ter that tour­na­ment, we lost all our ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers: Mar­vin An­drews, Den­nis Lawrence, Dwight Yorke, Rus­sell Lat­apy and Sha­ka His­lop."

"Now it's been a re­build­ing process, the play­ers have come through, the fund­ing's been there and hope­ful­ly now they can show CON­CA­CAF that they are one of the big teams in that re­gion and hope­ful­ly go on. They've had some great re­sults, draw­ing against USA at home, beat­ing Guatemala away and draw­ing with them at home. Even in the Gold Cup the year be­fore, draw­ing with Mex­i­co, these are things that even in 2006 would have been un­be­liev­able. Now this young group of play­ers are all com­ing to­geth­er."

�2 Shaun Fuentes is press of­fi­cer for the TTFA.