Sama­ki Fe­li­cian

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

On a nar­row street in Diego Mar­tin, a lit­tle girl once told every­one that the road was named af­ter her. “Sa­landy Street—that’s mine,” she’d say with a grin, con­vinced it was proof she was meant for great­ness.

To­day, at just 17, Da­neelya Sa­landy car­ries that same con­fi­dence on­to foot­ball pitch­es across T&T. From the school­yard match­es where she once out­ran the boys, to wear­ing na­tion­al colours on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, the teenag­er is fast be­com­ing one of the coun­try’s bright­est young foot­ballers.

Sports were stitched in­to Da­neelya’s life from the start. She re­mem­bers sit­ting on the couch watch­ing her fa­ther, Dami­an, and un­cle bat­tle it out on FI­FA, itch­ing to play her­self. Soon she was out­side in Di­a­mond Vale Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry, drib­bling through boys twice her size.

But foot­ball wasn’t her on­ly are­na. She tried al­most every­thing—long jump, wa­ter po­lo, net­ball, track and field, even com­pet­i­tive jump rope. In 2017, she trav­elled to Or­lan­do to rep­re­sent T&T at the World Jump Rope Cham­pi­onships. It was there that des­tiny tapped her shoul­der: a pair of foot­ball boots in a store, marked down to just US$20.

At nine years old, she slipped them on and an­nounced, “I’m go­ing to play foot­ball.”

Back home, she joined an acad­e­my at Nel­son Man­dela Park. Net­ball coach­es want­ed her for the na­tion­al team, but she chose the game she had fall­en for, even when it meant few­er op­por­tu­ni­ties in those ear­ly years.

Af­ter earn­ing a place at St Fran­cois Girls’ Col­lege, she hit an­oth­er hur­dle: the school had no foot­ball team. She buried her­self in aca­d­e­mics un­til 2020, when she fi­nal­ly pulled on a jer­sey. Her first per­for­mance stunned team­mates. “Where have you been all this time?” they asked.

Then the pan­dem­ic hit, shut­ting down sport across the coun­try. For many, that meant pause. For Da­neelya, it meant per­sis­tence. She trained with foot­baller Tau Lam­see, who in­tro­duced her to Pro Se­ries—where she sharp­ened her game by train­ing against boys.

Lat­er that year, she heard about na­tion­al un­der-17 try­outs. By the time she showed up, it was the last of four days, and she near­ly walked away in doubt.

“I asked the coach if I would even get se­lect­ed since I had missed the oth­er days, and he just said, ‘Go and play,’” she re­calls. She did—and earned her place.

In 2023, she proud­ly wore red, white, and black at the CON­CA­CAF U-17 Girls’ Cham­pi­onship.

Play­ing through pain,

grow­ing through loss

Her rise hasn’t been with­out heart­break. A frac­tured fin­ger side­lined her in the mid­dle of last year’s In­ter­col sea­son, forc­ing her to watch from the stands as her team stum­bled in the se­mi-fi­nals.

“I was very dis­ap­point­ed,” she says. “But I told my­self, okay, we didn’t win this, so we have to win the ti­tle. And so said, so done.”

Not be­ing se­lect­ed for the un­der-20 na­tion­al team al­so test­ed her con­fi­dence. In­stead of crum­bling, she used the re­jec­tion as fu­el. “You’re go­ing to stum­ble across hur­dles, but it will all be worth it in the end once you stick to the plan.”

By now, Da­neelya has played with Po­lice FC, AC Port-of-Spain, and Pro Se­ries, where she helped cap­ture the Re­pub­lic Bank Youth Tour­na­ment na­tion­al ti­tle as vice-cap­tain. At St Joseph’s Con­vent, she guid­ed her school to last sea­son’s Girls’ Na­tion­al In­ter­col crown, earn­ing the Man of the Match award.

She calls her­self a “sim­ple play­er,” usu­al­ly slot­ting in on the right wing or mid­field. But her mind­set is any­thing but sim­ple. Cris­tiano Ronal­do is her sport­ing idol, and like him, she thrives on dis­ci­pline.

“I strong­ly be­lieve in sac­ri­fic­ing now for a bet­ter lifestyle in the end.”

Be­yond foot­ball, she dreams of se­cur­ing an ath­let­ic schol­ar­ship abroad, study­ing sci­ences — per­haps sports med­i­cine or phys­io­ther­a­py—and play­ing at the high­est lev­el. Cham­pi­onships, rings, and na­tion­al pride are all part of the vi­sion, but so is build­ing a fu­ture that lasts long af­ter the fi­nal whis­tle.

For now, she is fo­cused on an­oth­er In­ter­col sea­son and main­tain­ing her spot among the top five fe­male foot­ballers in the coun­try—a rep­u­ta­tion that push­es her to per­form every time she laces up her boots.

Back on Sa­landy Street, the road signs still stand. For Da­neelya, they are no longer just a child­hood joke. They are a re­minder that her name and her game are al­ready paving the way to­ward great­ness.