T&T’s ju­nior foot­ball teams have had more ‘For­tunes’ in the past, lit­er­al­ly.

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of vet­er­an ace An­dré For­tune Sr in the 1980s and 90s, the For­tune off-springs An­dré For­tune II (Dré) and Ajani were al­so priv­i­leged to grace the red, white and black for T&T in the re­cent past, which is some­thing their fa­ther nev­er did.

The se­nior For­tune said he is su­per proud to see his boys play for the coun­try, achiev­ing a feat that missed him dur­ing his hey­days. But their suc­cess­es have now left him with much an­tic­i­pa­tion of a se­nior team pick.

As a mid­field­er, the se­nior For­tune rep­re­sent­ed John Don­ald­son Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute in the Col­leges League, as well as Alvin Corneal Coach­ing School, Maple FC, Co­corite Ball Gi­ants and San Juan Jabloeth as a young play­er. He lat­er moved to the Unit­ed States, as a stu­dent-ath­lete at Col­lege, where he grad­u­at­ed with a de­gree in Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence and Pre-Law.

Be­ing a coach him­self, both his sons Dré and Jay in­her­it­ed his skills in the game and took off where he left off, mov­ing on to youth clubs North Car­oli­na FC and At­lanta Unit­ed re­spec­tive­ly as 16-year-olds be­fore gain­ing na­tion­al picks.

In 2013 Dré was se­lect­ed by coach Shawn Coop­er, to rep­re­sent T&T at the CON­CA­CAF World Cup Qual­i­fi­er Fi­nals in Pana­ma, where he cre­at­ed his­to­ry by scor­ing to de­feat Cos­ta Ri­ca in T&T’s on­ly ever win against them at any lev­el in World Cup qual­i­fiers. A year lat­er he was part of the 2014 Un­der-20 team that won the Caribbean Cup.

Dré cur­rent­ly plays for North Car­oli­na FC in the Unit­ed Soc­cer League (USL) and is de­sirous of rep­re­sent­ing the War­riors at the se­nior lev­el one day.

Like his broth­er, Jay cur­rent­ly plays for At­lanta Unit­ed in the US Soc­cer De­vel­op­ment Acad­e­my League which he joined in 2018 af­ter be­ing eval­u­at­ed and se­lect­ed by their Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor Tony An­nan.

He was al­so a mem­ber of Stern John’s Un­der-17 team which was boot­ed out of Un­der-17 CON­CA­CAF Cham­pi­onships at the quar­ter-fi­nal phase by Hon­duras ear­li­er this month in the US.

Pri­or to join­ing At­lanta Unit­ed, Jay played for In­ter De­vel­op­ment Fút­bol (IDF), a club co-found­ed by An­dré For­tune Sr. and his close friend Bakela Nare, a na­tive of Zim­bab­we, in 2011.