Na­tion­al Un­der-20 head coach Zo­ran Vranes had his com­plete ros­ter of 22 play­ers avail­able to him for the first time yes­ter­day, as Eng­lish-born Southamp­ton mid­field­er Jake Thom­son joined the team camp in La­n­ar­ca, Cyprus.

Thom­son ar­rived from Lon­don in the wee hours of yes­ter­day morn­ing and af­ter a cou­ple hours rest, he was pre­sent­ed with his train­ing kit and was out on the train­ing pitch with skip­per Le­ston Paul and the rest of the squad.

Al­so join­ing up with the T&T team was Amer­i­can Spencer Wood, a renowned leader in the field of men­tal skills and tough­ness train­ing. He first linked up with the Na­tion­al Un­der-20 team dur­ing a camp in To­ba­go pri­or to the Con­ca­caf fi­nal round of qual­i­fiers ear­li­er this year.

Wood, whose trip has been fund­ed by TTFF Spe­cial Ad­vis­er Jack Warn­er, will work with the T&T Un­der 20s through­out the du­ra­tion of the tour­na­ment.

The man of the mo­ment on Mon­day though was un­doubt­ed­ly Thom­son, as he met with his new team­mates and seem­ing­ly fit­ted in right away. He ap­peared com­fort­able through­out his first ses­sion un­der Vranes and re­as­sured his com­mit­ment to T&T.

Thom­son cred­it­ed for­mer Southamp­ton strik­er Stern John for in­flu­enc­ing him to take up the in­vi­ta­tion to play for T&T.

"Stern John played at Southamp­ton and he spoke to me a cou­ple of months ago and I just de­cid­ed at that point that I want­ed to come and play for Trinidad and rep­re­sent the coun­try.

Thom­son, whose fa­ther is a Trinida­di­an, has rep­re­sent­ed Eng­land at the Un­der-17 lev­el but now he claims that he sees his fu­ture as a T&T play­er and he has am­bi­tions to play for the se­nior team.