Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion will kick off its bid for a fourth Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Cham­pi­onship crown when it faces Guyana De­fence Force in the fu­ture match of a Group Two dou­ble-head­er at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va from 8 pm tonight.

This af­ter SAP FC of An­tigua & Bar­bu­da comes up against Ja­maica's Wa­ter­house from 5.30 pm in the day's open­er at the same venue.

Win­ners on three pre­vi­ous ocas­sions from sev­en trips to the fi­nal, W Con­nec­tion last com­pet­ed in the CFU Club com­pe­ti­tion in 2013 and is cur­rent­ly in the end stages of try­ing to re­tain its Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League cronw as it trails fel­low CFU Club Cham­pi­onship com­peti­tors, Cen­tral FC by six points with two and three match­es to play for each club.

How­ev­er, from to­day un­til Sun­day, St Lu­cian-born W Con­nec­tion coach Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er and his 18-man squad will have one lone aim, which is to top its round-robin group to ad­vance to the April 22 semi­fi­nals.

Speak­ing on the eve on the tour­na­ment, Charles-Fevri­er said he was very sat­is­fied in terms of the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of the squad.

He added: "We have a re­al­ly good squad based on the play­ers we have to choose from and we ex­pect all the teams will show­case a good lev­el of foot­ball, hence we can­not un­der­es­ti­mate the oth­er teams be­cause they are am­bi­tious of qual­i­fy­ing for the Cham­pi­ons League al­so."

The long­stand­ing W Con­nec­tion coach stat­ed, "Foot­ball now, is­nt like my play­ing days when T&T played against oth­er Caribbean na­tions. Back then you didn't have to show up be­cause you knew T&T was go­ing to win.

"But foot­ball has changed a lot since then. Peo­ple are more ed­u­cat­ed in foot­ball now. The coach­ing and de­vel­op­ment that's go­ing on in the oth­er is­lands have im­proved. Even the qual­i­ty of foot­ball that every­one watch­es on tele­vi­sion is at a very high qual­i­ty. The whole self es­teem and con­fi­dence are on a high­er lev­el now across the Caribbean, with play­ers re­al­is­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ties they have to play abroad.

"On the skill lev­el, T&T play­ers are still bet­ter but that doesn't guar­an­tee us a win. We still have to play at our best. But I am con­fi­dent in our abil­i­ty and in that re­gard we in­tend to win the group."

In­clud­ed in the W Con­nec­tion squad are re­cent T&T se­nior team call-ups, Akeem Gar­cia, Shan­non Gomez, Mau­rice Ford, na­tion­al de­fend­ers Mekeil Williams and Alvin Jones, as well as Jo­mol Williams, Jer­rel Brit­to and for­mer Fin­land-based Shan­non Win­ches­ter.

While not much is known of SAP FC and Guyana De­fence Force, Wa­ter­house ar­rived in T&T yes­ter­day with a strong squad led by club cap­tain and goal­keep­er Richard Mc Cal­lum.

And speak­ing in the Ja­maica Ob­serv­er ear­li­er this week Mc Cal­lum said he was look­ing for­ward to an­oth­er pos­i­tive show­ing from his team.

It is the sec­ond year in suc­ces­sion that Wa­ter­house is com­pet­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion af­ter last sea­son's suc­cess­ful run saw them pro­gress­ing to the Con­ca­caf Club Cham­pi­onship, where they per­formed cred­itably be­fore be­ing elim­i­nat­ed.

"Last year, for the CFU Club Cham­pi­onship, we went in­to the tour­na­ment very fo­cused, well pre­pared with an in­ten­tion to do well and this year, we are go­ing in just as fo­cused, but the lev­el of [fi­nan­cial] sup­port we had last year is miss­ing this year. Nonethe­less, our in­ten­tion is to do just as good as we did last year, and hope­ful­ly we can take it much fur­ther," he said.

Lead­ing the Wa­ter­house at­tack is Ja­maican in­ter­na­tion­al strik­er, Jer­maine "Tuffy" An­der­son,

Mean­while Cen­tral FC, last sea­son's Pro League run­ner-up left for Guyana yes­ter­day, where it will makes its tour­na­ment bow in Group One against host, Al­pha Unit­ed, the Guyana cham­pi­ons and Suri­name's In­ter Mo­en­go­tapoe, which has won its league ti­tle, six of the last eight sea­sons. Haiti will host Group Three and Four of this sea­son's Caribbean Club Cham­pi­onship.

W Con­nec­tion squad

Akeem Gar­cia, Shan­non Gomez, Mau­rice Ford, Ju­lani Archibald, Aque­lius Sylvester, Mekeil Williams, Kurt Fred­er­ick, Tris­ton Hodge, Chris­t­ian Viveros, Alvin Jones, Ger­ard Williams, Chris­t­ian Ro­driguez, Yhon Stiv­en Reyes Lopez, Hashim Ar­cia, Jo­mol Williams, Jer­rel Brit­to, Shan­non Win­ches­ter, Neil Ben­jamin Jr

Fix­tures

Group One (Guyana):

Venue: Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um, Prov­i­dence

To­day:

Al­pha Unit­ed (GUY) vs In­ter Mo­en­go­tapoe (SUR), 4 pm

Fri­day:

In­ter Mo­en­go­tapoe (SUR) vs Cen­tral FC (T&T), 4 pm

Sun­day:

Al­pha Unit­ed (GUY) vs Cen­tral FC (T&T), 4 pm

Group Two (T&T):

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va

To­day:

SAP FC (ATG) vs Wa­ter­house FC (JAM), 5.30 pm

W Con­nec­tion (T&T) vs Guyana De­fence Force (GUY), 8 pm

Fri­day:

Wa­ter­house FC (JAM) vs Guyana De­fence Force (GUY), 5.30 pm

W Con­nec­tion (T&T) vs SAP FC (ATG), 8 pm

Sun­day:

Guyana De­fence Force (GUY) vs SAP FC (ATG), 5.30 pm

W Con­nec­tion (T&T) vs Wa­ter­house FC (JAM), 8 pm

Group Three (Haiti):

Venue: Com­plexe Sportif des Cayes (Les Cayes)

To­day:

Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed (JAM) vs Club Sportif Moulien (GLP), 3.30 pm

Amer­i­ca FC (HAI) vs SV Ex­cel­sior (SUR), 6 pm

Fri­day:

Club Sportif Moulien (GLP) vs SV Ex­cel­sior (SUR), 3.30 pm

Amer­i­ca FC (HAI) vs Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed (JAM), 6 pm

Sun­day:

SV Ex­cel­sior (SUR) vs Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed (JAM), 3.30 pm

Amer­i­ca FC (HAI) vs Club Sportif Moulien (GLP), 6 pm

Group Four (Haiti):

Venue: Stade Sylvio Cator, Port-au-Prince

To­day:

He­len­ites Sport­ing Club (VIR) vs Unite Sainte Rose (GLP), 4 pm

Don Bosco FC (HAI) vs Ly­ford Cay FC (BAH), 6.30 pm

Fri­day:

Unite Sainte Rose (GLP) vs Ly­ford Cay FC (BAH), 4 pm

Don Bosco FC (HAI) vs He­len­ites Sport­ing Club (VIR), 6.30 pm

Sun­day:

Ly­ford Cay FC (BAH) vs He­len­ites Sport­ing Club (VIR), 4 pm

Don Bosco FC (HAI) vs Unite Sainte Rose (GLP), 6.30 pm

Semi­fi­nals:

April 22:

Win­ner Group One vs Win­ner Group Two

Win­ner Group Three vs Win­ner Group Four

Fi­nals and 3rd place match­es:

April 24