T&T na­tion­al Un­der-20 foot­ballers will go in­to back-to-back warm up in­ter­na­tion­al match­es against Aus­tralia and Unit­ed States on Thurs­day and Fri­day in La­n­ar­ca, Cyprus.Head coach Zo­ran Vranes is al­so ex­pect­ed to have Eng­lish-born Southamp­ton mid­field­er Jake Thom­son on his team on Tues­day. The for­mer Eng­land Un­der 17 in­ter­na­tion­al is ex­pect­ed to fi­nalise his T&T pass­port doc­u­ments in Lon­don at the T&T High Com­mis­sion on Mon­day, pri­or to his flight to Cyprus.

Yes­ter­day, Vranes con­duct­ed an 80-minute train­ing ses­sion un­der rel­a­tive­ly dry con­di­tions at a train­ing pitch close to the Olympic La­goon Re­sort, where the T&T team will be based for the next week.

Skip­per Le­ston Paul and his team-mates pushed them­selves through­out the ses­sion and there were no signs of a re­laxed ap­proach by any play­er fol­low­ing Vranes' an­nounce­ment of the 22-man squad that will head to Egypt for the FI­FA Un­der-20 World Cham­pi­onship next week. There was a down­side to the in­ten­si­ty lev­el dur­ing the ses­sion as three play­ers, Paul, Ja­mal Clarence and Robert Primus had to be side­lined for pre­cau­tion­ary treat­ment. All three play­ers are ex­pect­ed to be fine in time for to­day's prac­tice ses­sion.

"So far the prepa­ra­tions have been go­ing well. We've had a few re­al­ly good games and we've on­ly lost one in Eng­land so the record has been good and do­ing well for the con­fi­dence too," Paul said. "Ja­mal and Khaleem have al­so giv­en the team a boost and the guys from be­fore have had that bond so we're just look­ing to build on this be­fore we get to Egypt. "The guys are fo­cused and just think­ing about Sep­tem­ber 24 - the open­ing game against Egypt. We are look­ing for­ward to the two games here. We ob­vi­ous­ly want to get two wins but as long as get good prepa­ra­tion out of the games then we will be hap­py with that," said Paul.

Paul not­ed that play­ers will be mind­ful of in­jury pos­si­bil­i­ties as days count­down to the open­ing game in Alexan­dria. "Most of the play­ers are mind­ful of it (in­juries). We have been prepar­ing for this a year plus now and every­body wants to be there when it starts in Egypt. Coach has do­ing a lot of men­tal work with us as well. He (Vranes) is not just a coach to us...but he's like a fa­ther as well, al­ways giv­ing us point­ers on dif­fer­ent things on and off the field," Paul said.