Na­tion­al Women's foot­ball coach Ken­wyne Jones is hop­ing for a pos­i­tive start as well as po­ten­tial­ly a bright fu­ture for his team ahead of Thurs­day's start of the CON­CA­CAF World Cup Qual­i­fiers where his charges will face Nicaragua at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo from 3 pm.

T&T is aim­ing to qual­i­fy for the 2023 FI­FA Women’s World Cup in Aus­tralia and New Zealand as well as the Con­ca­caf’s qual­i­fiers for the 2024 Sum­mer Olympics in France.

Jones, a for­mer na­tion­al se­nior and ju­nior in­ter­na­tion­al play­er, who is not a stranger to World Cup qual­i­fiers said on Wednes­day that de­spite hav­ing the weak­est prepa­ra­tion among all the teams vy­ing for qual­i­fi­ca­tion, his team will be bal­anced: "Yes we have a young team but I think we have a nice blend of play­ers with ex­pe­ri­ence, play­ers that are in their prime and the young play­ers. For any team that's head­ing in­to com­pe­ti­tions like this, that is the blend nec­es­sary so, I am con­fi­dent in the team that we have and what we're go­ing to do."

On Tues­day, Amaya El­lis, the daugh­ter of for­mer Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege star play­er Mark El­lis re­vealed that the train­ing ses­sions so far with coach Jones have been go­ing well. “I think that the en­er­gy is high and every­one is re­al­ly get­ting com­fort­able with each oth­er on and off the field, so we just have to con­tin­ue to build that team chem­istry,” stat­ed El­lis.

Jones' fo­cus will be to re­ceive max­i­mum points. Jones the for­mer T&T strik­er came in as a re­place­ment for Welsh­man James Thomas who left last year to take up a job in the Unit­ed King­dom. Since that, it has been a tale of ups and downs head­ing in­to the qual­i­fiers where his team will con­test Group F. First his charges pro­duced more-than-im­pres­sive per­for­mances at friend­ly match­es against Pana­ma and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic last year, and re­cent­ly two of his ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers Maylee At­tin-John­son and Ken­nya Cord­ner were not se­lect­ed for rea­sons still un­told to the me­dia.

Fol­low­ing the team's fi­nal train­ing ses­sion on Wednes­day, Jones said de­pend­ing on what hap­pens to­day, their fu­ture in the qual­i­fiers can be a dif­fi­cult one: " Every­one is ex­cit­ed and fo­cused. For them in this cy­cle of the World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion, it is the plat­form for them to set the tone for what is go­ing to hap­pen in the fu­ture. I know we came close in the past but we can't live in the past.

Start­ing with a win and win­ning every game guar­an­tees you go through the group and if that is not what's hap­pen­ing, then based on what hap­pens in the first game the fu­ture is out of your hands, you're de­pend­ing on oth­er re­sults.

The most im­por­tant game for us is the next game which is the game on Thurs­day, we have to take care of that."

Jones' 22-play­er squad will com­prise El­lis, who was one of nine mid­field­ers in­clu­sive of Shani Nakhid-Schus­ter, Liana Hinds, team cap­tain Karyn Forbes (Po­lice FC), Kay­deen Jack (Gram­bling State Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), Asha James (West Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), Chel­cy Ralph (Ball State Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), Kedie John­son (Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), and Maria-Frances Ser­rant (Cor­ban Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), and said ss al­so ex­pressed ex­cite­ment about re­unit­ing with some of the play­ers with whom she played at the younger na­tion­al lev­el.

To­day's game will be the first time that lo­cal fans will be wit­ness­ing a game live since the pan­dem­ic. Fans will be al­lowed to watch the game for free.

Jones said while it will be ide­al to have the crowd as the 12th man, that will on­ly be a thing at the side as his team knows what it has to do and in­tends to do with or with­out the fans.

Sup­port­ers are re­quired to walk with their vac­ci­na­tion cards and IDs to gain en­try in the un­cov­ered stands area of the HCS. Un­vac­ci­nat­ed chil­dren will not be al­lowed to en­ter the game venue.

Three days lat­er, T&T takes on Do­mini­ca in Guyana while T&T will play Turks and Caicos Is­lands on April 9, and Guyana on April 12 to close out the round-robin pool cam­paign. At the end of this stage, on­ly the top team will qual­i­fy for the next phase of the com­pe­ti­tion.

(T&T Team)

Goal­keep­ers:

1.Kimi­ka Forbes (Po­lice FC), 21.Tene­sha Palmer (Po­lice FC), 22.K’lil Kesh­war (St Fran­cis Col­lege—USA);

De­fend­ers:

2.Abishai Guy (Point Fortin), 4.Rhea Bel­grave (Po­lice FC), 5.Shau­nalee Govia (Uni­ver­si­ty of Mount Olive), 20.Lau­ryn Hutchin­son (both un­at­tached), 8.Vic­to­ria Swift (Club Leon—Mex­i­co), 19.Meyah Romeo (De­troit City—USA);

Mid­field­ers:

3.Shani Nakhid-Schus­ter, 7.Liana Hinds (both un­at­tached), 14.Karyn Forbes (Po­lice FC), 6.Kay­deen Jack (Gram­bling State Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), 9.Amaya El­lis (Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), 10.Asha James (West Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), 12.Chel­cy Ralph (Ball State Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), 15.Kedie John­son (Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), 18.Maria-Frances Ser­rant (Cor­ban Uni­ver­si­ty—USA),

For­wards:

11.Rae­nah Camp­bell (Avantes Chalki­da WFC—USA), 13.Den­necia Prince (Point Fortin), 16.Cay­la Mc­Far­lane (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty—USA), 17.Maya Ma­touk (Po­lice FC).