Ex­pe­ri­ence T&T de­fend­er Vic­to­ria Swift has de­scribed the build-up to Fri­day’s Con­ca­caf Road to W Gold Cup qual­i­fi­er against Puer­to Ri­co as in­tense and pur­pose­ful.

This coun­try’s Se­nior Women’s Team will play on home soil for the first time since April 2022, aim­ing to put points on the board fol­low­ing their open­ing 6-0 loss to Mex­i­co last month.

Coach Richard Hood has been over­see­ing prepa­ra­tions dur­ing a res­i­den­tial train­ing camp and was ex­pect­ed to an­nounce his fi­nal squad on Wednes­day for Fri­day’s match which kicks off at 7:00 pm at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

Swift, one of the vet­er­ans in the cur­rent set-up, be­lieves that T&T can pick up points on Fri­day.

“Prepa­ra­tions have been very in­tense since we got back from play­ing Mex­i­co. Thus far I’m ex­treme­ly proud of the play­ers for all their ef­forts in each and every ses­sion,” Swift said.

“Words can’t ex­plain how ex­cit­ed I am to be play­ing in Port-of-Spain be­fore the home fans. This is go­ing to give us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to bring back the joy and pas­sion of women’s foot­ball to T&T. I know there are a lot of play­ers hun­gry to get op­por­tu­ni­ties and do well in women’s foot­ball here and a pos­i­tive show­ing by us can on­ly boost the lo­cal women’s game,” she added.

Swift knows the im­por­tance of see­ing T&T ad­vance to the next Women’s Gold Cup, es­pe­cial­ly with sights set on the next World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign for the 2027 Women’s World Cup.

“Get­ting a pos­i­tive re­sult on Fri­day is of ut­most im­por­tance. This would keep our dream alive of qual­i­fy­ing for the first-ever Women’s Gold Cup. It’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate his­to­ry.”

“A lot of the fo­cus has been on how we want to play as a unit. We plan to go out there as a team and play with heart and soul, lay­ing it all on the line,” she added.

Tick­ets for to­mor­row’s match cost $50 (Cov­ered Sec­tion) on­ly and will be on sale at the venue on game­day. Kids 12 and Un­der are free.

Fol­low­ing Fri­day’s match, T&T will trav­el to play Puer­to Ri­co on Oc­to­ber 31. Puer­to Ri­co is cur­rent­ly sec­ond in the three-team group, with a -1 goal dif­fer­ence as op­posed to T&T’s -6.

The Road To W Gold Cup in­volves 34 par­tic­i­pat­ing teams split in­to three leagues: League A, League B, and League C.

T&T is in League A which has the nine top-ranked teams di­vid­ed in­to three groups of three. League B will con­sist of 12 teams split in­to three groups of four teams, while League C will have 13 teams in to­tal. In League C, Group A will have three teams, while Group B, Group C, and Group D will have three teams each.

In all three leagues, the teams will play each oth­er home and away.

The three group win­ners from League A will qual­i­fy for the 2024 W Gold Cup while The three sec­ond-place teams from League A will ad­vance to the Play­offs which will in­clude the three group win­ners from League B. The League A sec­ond-place teams will play a sin­gle-leg Play­off match against the League B group win­ners to de­ter­mine the fi­nal three places in the 2024 W Gold Cup.

<Hood se­lectes new­com­er Maxwell>

New­com­er Zoe Maxwell who plays for Raanana Women FC in Is­rael has been se­lect­ed on coach Richard Hood’s 23-woman team to face Puer­to Ri­co in the Con­ca­caf Women’s Gold Cup at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Fri­day at 7 pm.

The tal­ent­ed at­tack­ing mid­field­er came in as a re­place­ment for Re­an­nah Camp­bell, while the in­jured Kedie John­son had to make way for Ab­bi­gail Moos.

Hood al­so got a re­place­ment for vet­er­an goal­keep­er Kami­ka Forbes, who con­ced­ed six goals in the team’s open­ing game against Mex­i­co un­der high al­ti­tude con­di­tions. Man­ag­er Lyn­dell Hoyte-Sanchez, who spoke to Guardian Me­dia Sports as Hood was in­volved in train­ing yes­ter­day at the Train­ing Field of the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um said, her charges are ready to try and over­turn their heavy loss to the Mex­i­cans.

She said that the play­ers cho­sen were those that were avail­able to them, how­ev­er, they were all ea­ger to take the field.

“ There will be a bit of nerves be­cause the play­ers will be play­ing in front of their home crowd, but they are aware of what needs to be done and they will give their best,” Hoyte-Sanchez ex­plained.

T&T WOMEN’S SQUAD

GOAL­KEEP­ERS

Malai­ka Dedi­er, Si­mone Eligon, Maya Figgen­er

DE­FEND­ERS

Christa Wa­ter­man, Brit­tney Williams, Crys­tal Mo­lin­eaux, Tama­ra John­son, Jonelle War­wick-Cato, Tsa­ianne Fer­nan­dez, Ab­bi­gail Moos, Vic­to­ria Swift

MID­FIELD­ERS

Karyn Forbes (Cpt), Chel­cy Ralph, Chris­sy Mitchell, Re­nee Mike, Naomie Guer­ra, Asha James, Zoe Maxwell

FOR­WARDS

Maria Frances-Ser­rant, Alex­cia Ali, Tsa­iane Le­an­der, Talia Mar­tin, Tal­i­ah Si­mon