Nigel Si­mon

T&T Un­der-20 foot­ballers will be play­ing for vic­to­ry when they come up against hosts Suri­name in the away-leg of their Group D Caribbean Foot­ball Union qual­i­fi­er to the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­onship at the An­dr�-Kam­per­veen-Sta­di­um, Para­mari­bo from 6 pm (TT time) tonight. The team left Wednes­day night and ar­rived in Suri­name at 4 am yes­ter­day. Coach Vranes was ex­pect­ed to con­duct one light train­ing ses­sion at the match venue from 6 pm yes­ter­day ahead of to­day's en­counter. For­mer "Strike Squad" play­er and as­sis­tant coach, Hut­son "Bar­ber" Charles said the team was go­ing in­to the match con­fi­dent. "We in­tend to ap­proach this match no dif­fer­ent to the oth­ers we have played. We al­ways go in look­ing for a win.

"The team is a very ca­pa­ble one and even though there is one lit­tle in­jury con­cern over FC South End's Wes­ley John every­one is keen­ly look­ing ahead to the match." Asked what the T&T staff knew about its op­po­nents, Charles said just a lit­tle. "We know they have a few Un­der-17 play­ers in their team along with a guy who played in the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League with one of their clubs and seems to be their main threat. "But we will not be tak­ing them for grant­ed as we don't in­tend to be caught on the back foot." T&T ad­vanced to the Group D de­cider af­ter beat­ing St Vin­cent and The Grenadines 12�1 on ag­gre­gate, which in­clud­ed an 8�0 away first-leg tri­umph sparked by a hat-trick from San Juan Jabloteh's Jer­rel Brit­to while Suri­name eased past Aru­ba 7�2.

In ad­di­tion to Brit­to, the oth­er key play­ers in the T&T squad are se­nior team mem­bers Jo­evin Jones and Shah­don Win­ches­ter, both of W Con­nec­tion, team cap­tain Shel­don Bateau (Jabloteh), and the Joe Pub­lic pair of Mar­cus Joseph and Ke­naz Williams. T&T will host the sec­ond leg at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya on De­cem­ber 19 from 3 pm, with the win­ner qual­i­fy­ing for the Con­ca­caf Fi­nal Round 12-team tour­na­ment. This tour­na­ment, to be host­ed by Guatemala, will qual­i­fy four teams to the 2011 Fi­fa Un­der-20 World Cup in Colom­bia.

T&T U-20 squad

Goal­keep­ers: Ja­maal Fran­cois (Jabloteh), John Thomas (Joe Pub­lic).

De­fend­ers: Akeem Adams (W Con­nec­tion), Dinell Lopez (St Au­gus­tine SC), Shel­don Bateau (Jabloteh), Jer­ron Mor­ris (De­fence Force), Wes­ley John (South End), Jo­evin Jones (W Con­nec­tion), Ak­il Clarke (St Ann's Rangers). Mid­field­ers: Shah­don Win­ches­ter (W Con­nec­tion), Mar­cus Joseph (Joe Pub­lic), Ke­naz Williams (Joe Pub­lic), Ryan Fred­er­icks (W Con­nec­tion), Kevin Ray­mond (Na­pari­ma Col­lege), Dwight Ce­bal­lo (Ma Pau). For­wards: Cordell Cato (Jabloteh), Jer­rel Brit­to (Jabloteh), Jo­han Pelti­er (Jabloteh).