Shaun Fuentes

Stern John is cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion on an in­jured knee af­ter be­ing op­er­at­ed on a week ago. He will be side­lined for a min­i­mum of six months. Dur­ing a prac­tice ses­sion with the Na­tion­al Team, John had a re­cur­ring An­te­ri­or Cru­ci­ate Lig­a­ment (ACL) in­jury which was first dam­aged in 2000 when he was at Not­ting­ham For­est. Back then he was or­dered to rest for four months. Ten years lat­er though, the in­jury re­quired surgery. And the ex-Birm­ing­ham City strik­er is de­ter­mined to re­turn, cur­rent­ly un­der­go­ing re­hab in Ohio.

The dis­ap­point­ing part is that John was set to sign a new con­tract with Amer­i­can Ma­jor League side Colum­bus Crew af­ter the 2010 World Cup which would have seen him make a re­turn to the club where he first rose to in­ter­na­tion­al promi­nence with a record tal­ly 26 goals in 1998. "The Colum­bus Crew were go­ing to sign me but the deal is on hold now un­til I'm fit again and back play­ing," the 33-year-old John said on Tues­day from Ohio. He had been re­leased by Crys­tal Palace at the end of last sea­son.

"It's dis­ap­point­ing to have the in­jury at this time be­cause I was def­i­nite­ly look­ing for­ward to a re­turn to the MLS and I was just back home hav­ing a go at keep­ing fit in the off sea­son and the prob­lem oc­curred in the train­ing. But it's hap­pened and I have to look over that and fo­cus on get­ting well again and com­ing back for what should be the twi­light of my ca­reer," added John who net­ted 69 goals in 109 ap­pear­ances for T&T in­clud­ing 12 vi­tal goals on the "Jour­ney to Ger­many" World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign.

Span­ish girls eye Caribbean trea­sure

Fresh from cop­ping the Eu­ro­pean crown, Spain wants to go all the way and win the Fi­fa Un­der 17 World Cup in T&T in Sep­tem­ber. Ac­cord­ing to their head coach Jorge Vil­da, the Spaniards have what is re­quired to con­quer all and fol­low in the foot­steps of their Se­nior Men's Team in South Africa. "We have brought to­geth­er a great group of peo­ple and that's the ba­sis of the team's suc­cess," Spain coach Jorge Vil­da told FI­FA.com.

As far as the coach is con­cerned, there is lit­tle doubt as to where the strengths of his side lie. "The sense of to­geth­er­ness in the squad," he said. "The cap­tains have played a fun­da­men­tal role in that, and when things have got tough they've come out and stood up for the team. Our No 10 Aman­da Sampe­dro is the leader, and that's not tak­ing any­thing away from the rest of the play­ers,�who give us a re­al­ly tough job when it comes to nam­ing a line-up." He added that he pos­sessed lit­tle in­for­ma­tion on open­ing group op­po­nents�New Zealand, Japan and Venezuela.

"I don't be­lieve in chang­ing your phi­los­o­phy and your game plan," Vil­da stat­ed. "You can make a few changes here and there but you have to stay faith­ful to your sys­tem and the way you work. The open­ing game is al­ways the tough­est one be­cause you're al­ways ner­vous on your de­but and be­cause you nev­er know that much about your op­po­nents."

Clarence looks too move to Hol­land

Na­tion­al Un­der 23 team for­ward Ju­ma Clarence is ey­ing a re­turn to Eu­rope for the new sea­son but wants to cut short his con­tract with Turk­ish Sec­ond Di­vi­sion club Haceteppe SK. Clarence is still un­der con­tract there for a cou­ple more sea­sons but his agent is cur­rent­ly look­ing for an­oth­er club pos­si­bly in Hol­land.

"I start­ed off well at Haceteppe even though the weath­er was dif­fi­cult in the ear­lies. But I set­tled and I scored on de­but for the club. Un­for­tu­nate­ly it didn't go too well and we were rel­e­gat­ed and�there was very lit­tle I could do to help the club late down in the sea­son," Clarence said. "My first taste of Eu­ro­pean foot­ball was good but I'm not set­tling for that as I want to reach fur­ther and play at a high­er lev­el. I'm thank­ful to Haceteppe for the op­por­tu­ni­ty they gave me but cur­rent­ly my agent is look­ing for a new club and there may be a pos­si­bil­i­ty in Hol­land or Is­rael. I should know more by Au­gust.

"Per­son­al­ly I feel I've de­vel­oped some more as a strik­er but it' not go­ing to keep me from work­ing hard and try­ing to be­come a bet­ter all round play­er. "That is one of the rea­sons I'm hop­ing to move on­to some­thing else," added Clarence who scored T&T's lone goal in a 2-1 loss to Italy at the 2009 Fi­fa Un­der 20 World Cup in Cairo, Egypt.