Shaun Fuentes

Debe High School has earned a rep­u­ta­tion as a breed­ing ground for top women foot­ballers in T&T and look set to main­tain their dom­i­nance in the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League for many sea­sons. The sev­en-year south school has cap­tured the Na­tion­al League, In­ter­col and South Zone ti­tles con­sec­u­tive­ly for the past three sea­sons and have pro­duced sev­er­al na­tion­al play­ers, most no­tably goal­keep­er Lin­fah Jones, Kay­la Tay­lor and Patrice Vin­cent who were mem­bers of T&T's Un­der 17 team at the 2010 Fi­fa Un­der 17 Women's World Cup.

For­mer na­tion­al Un­der 20 cap­tain Mari­ah Shade and Eliz­a­beth Ng Wait are al­so past stu­dents.�Debe's most re­cent suc­cess was a 1-0 win over Rox­bor­ough Sec­ondary in the Big Four Fi­nal and then a 4-1 win over the same To­ba­go side in the BGTT Girls In­ter­col fi­nal last week. Two of the main men be­hind Debe's suc­cess are head coach Arnold Mur­phy and team man­ag­er Clive Ogiste who is al­so a phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion teacher at the school. Ac­cord­ing to Mur­phy, the de­ci­sion to merge with the Petrotrin Women's team a few years back has paid div­i­dends. Sev­er­al of the play­ers at Debe High al­so play for Petrotrin, where Mur­phy is al­so the head coach.

"In our first sea­son we got knocked around but then we set­tled and we have gone on to win ti­tle af­ter ti­tle. We took a de­ci­sion to merge with Petrotrin and most if not all our play­ers play for both teams. We were dis­cov­er­ing play­ers turn­ing up at Petrotrin and there was that op­por­tu­ni­ty to get them in­to school to pur­sue an ed­u­ca­tion and play foot­ball.

We play our match­es at Guaracara Park and the Petrotrin Sports Club have been our biggest sup­port­ers in terms of fi­nance al­so," Mur­phy said on Tues­day. He hopes a greater ef­fort will be made to have the school ground or a near­by ground in Debe re­fur­bished to al­low the team to train and play with­in the com­mu­ni­ty rather than at Point-a-Pierre.

The school al­so places heavy em­pha­sis on the aca­d­e­m­ic progress of the play­ers and al­ready Unit­ed States Col­leges have been in con­tact over the pos­si­bil­i­ty of of­fer­ing schol­ar­ships to the out­stand­ing play­ers. "When peo­ple hear Debe they think about aloo pie and dou­bles. But there are a lot more good things go­ing on down here and it's ev­i­dent with the foot­ball suc­cess. We stress the need for a bal­ance be­tween the sports like foot­ball and the aca­d­e­mics and you see the re­sults with Lin­fah now do­ing A-Lev­els and�Patrice and Kay­la are prepar­ing for the CXC ex­am­i­na­tions. "We al­so have na­tion­al swim­mers, we have been na­tion­al hock­ey and wind­ball crick­et cham­pi­ons too," Mur­phy re­vealed. "We want to con­tin­ue mak­ing our mark and pro­vide an av­enue for young­sters to have op­tions for good fu­tures," Mur­phy end­ed

Moli­no en­joys the learn­ing�process

The dis­play of young Kevin Moli­no on the right flank was one of the bright spots for T&T at the Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup Fi­nals and has cap­tured the at­ten­tion of a cou­ple scouts for his per­for­mances. Moli­no, 20, has been at the FI­FA Un­der 17 and Un­der 20 World Cups with T&T and is now a mem­ber of Ma Pau FC be­fore Rus­sell Lat­apy gave him his se­nior first in­ter­na­tion­al last month. A cou­ple MLS clubs as well as one in the Unit­ed King­dom has kept an eye on Moli­no, who along with his for­mer Un­der 17 and Un­der 20 team­mate Daniel Cyrus caught the eyes with their im­pres­sive dis­play dur­ing the Dig­i­cel Cup. "I was a lit­tle sur­prised when I got the first call and may be a bit ner­vous in my first game, but I saw it as a re­ward for the hard work. I picked my game up a bit and I've been en­joy­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence," said Moli­no who set up Hugh­tun Hec­tor's goal in the 1-0 win over Mar­tinique on Tues­day. "Hope­ful­ly I will get the chance to keep on play­ing at the se­nior lev­el and con­tin­ue my de­vel­op­ment. If the chance comes for me to go out­side and play then I'll be grate­ful for it. I'm thank­ful for the chance coach Lat­apy gave me and he's been help­ing me out with some ad­vice in train­ing and it's been a big mo­ment for me to train un­der some­one like him and to play with some of the se­nior play­ers," Moli­no said.

Vil­la star­let wants to be like Dwight

Dwight Yorke's name is still very pop­u­lar at Man­ches­ter Unit­ed and As­ton Vil­la and it was back in the UK Press this past week when As­ton Vil­la star­let Nathan Delfoune­so ad­mit­ted that he tries to mod­el his game on Yorke and Andy Cole. The Eng­land Un­der-21 star said that the duo were the per­fect pair­ing be­cause they com­pli­ment­ed each oth­er's skills so well. Delfoune­so told the Sun­day Mer­cury: "I watched Yorke at Man Utd more than Vil­la be­cause I was a bit too young. It was more the Cole and Yorke part­ner­ship that I liked, the way they in­te­grat­ed. I was a mas­sive fan of Andy Cole when Dwight joined him so I got to see what a true part­ner­ship was like. It's some­thing that you strive to em­u­late." Yorke is now a Sky TV foot­ball pun­dit and par­tic­i­pat­ed at the 11th Gary Play­er In­vi­ta­tion­al, pre­sent­ed by Co­ca-Co­la, at The Links at Fan­court Golf Es­tate in South Africa last Sun­day. Irish busi­ness­woman Sinead Ken­ny com­bined with Yorke and high pro­file pro­fes­sion­al golfers Ser­gio Gar­cia and John Cook to win the four­ball al­liance com­pe­ti­tion by three strokes on 27 un­der par.

San Jose re­leas­es Glen

Cor­nell Glen, Brazil­ian Geo­van­ni and Ed­uar­do have been re­leased by Amer­i­can Ma­jor League Soc­cer club San Jose Earth­quakes. The 30-year-old Glen ap­peared in two of T&T's three match­es at the Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup and is now on the search for a new club. "I could look at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing a break from in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball if it is that I have to fo­cus more on my club ca­reer. I've sac­ri­ficed a lot to play in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball and hav­ing to come back from a cou­ple of in­juries al­so has ham­pered my form. I'll look at the op­tions avail­able for the next sea­son," Glen said. Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for So­ca War­riors/TTFF