For­mer T&T goal­keep­er Sha­ka His­lop be­lieves that the re­cent de­vel­op­ments or­ches­trat­ed by the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly the show­ing of the se­nior men's team at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup is an in­di­ca­tion of a new era for lo­cal foot­ball.His­lop, an ES­PN An­a­lyst, was speak­ing on Sat­ur­day night as he vis­it­ed the T&T team ho­tel at the West­in Plaza, At­lanta fol­low­ing the 1-0 de­feat to Mex­i­co. His­lop was in at­ten­dance at the Geor­gia Dome be­fore meet­ing up with the T&T play­ers and staff mem­bers.

"We have seen a new dawn in many re­spects in the na­tion­al game and it's good look­ing at it from a fan's per­spec­tive to have some­thing to cheer about, to have some­thing to be ex­cit­ed and op­ti­mistic about and I think this tour­na­ment ticked all of those box­es," His­lop said."This is all a breath of fresh air af­ter the pe­ri­od we had on the back of 2006 , the fail­ures of the na­tion­al team which were un­der­lined by an on­go­ing court bat­tle and now as every­one knows there is a change is ad­min­is­tra­tion and the court case has been set­tled."

Com­ment­ing specif­i­cal­ly on the team's dis­play against the six-time Gold Cup cham­pi­ons on Sat­ur­day, His­lop said, "I felt it was a fan­tas­tic per­for­mance and one that un­der­lined what I felt all along which is that the team grew in the tour­na­ment not just in con­fi­dence but in the way they played the game, the un­der­stand­ing of the game, both tac­ti­cal­ly and tech­ni­cal­ly and it was as good a per­for­mance that we've seen from a T&T na­tion­al team for a very long time."

The for­mer New­cas­tle Unit­ed and Read­ing cus­to­di­an is not over­whelmed by the progress but keen to see on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment and ex­pects Stephen Hart and Leo Been­hakker to con­tin­ue the mo­men­tum but said it would re­quire a col­lec­tive ef­fort from those con­cerned with T&T foot­ball."It gives us a plat­form to build on. I'm not go­ing to fool my­self in­to think­ing by any means that this is a fin­ished prod­uct. But giv­en what we have had to en­sure over the years as fans and play­ers, its good to see there is some­thing to work with."The team is pro­gress­ing and we are hope­ful for the com­ing fu­ture," said His­lop.