For­mer na­tion­al Women's foot­ball coach Mar­lon Charles is not ex­pect­ing any sur­pris­es when the Ca­lyp­so War­riors con­test Group F of the CON­CA­CAF/FI­FA World Cup Qual­i­fiers start­ing in No­vem­ber dur­ing the FI­FA Women's Win­dow.

At the CON­CA­CAF draw on Sat­ur­day last, the Women War­riors were drawn in Group F which com­pris­es Do­mini­ca, Nicaragua, Guyana and the Turks and Caicos Is­lands. They need to win the group to progress.

The oth­er groups are- Group A: Mex­i­co, Puer­to Ri­co, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Suri­name, An­guil­la; Group B: Cos­ta Ri­ca, Guatemala, Saint Kitts and Nevis, US Vir­gin Is­lands, Cu­raçao; Group C: Ja­maica, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Bermu­da, Grena­da, Cay­man Is­lands; Group D: Pana­ma, El Sal­vador, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Aru­ba; and Group E: Haiti, Cu­ba, Hon­duras, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, British Vir­gin Is­lands.

All the group win­ners will join the USA and Cana­da, who are both on a bye in­to the fi­nal eight teams, at the CON­CA­CAF World Cham­pi­onships and World Cup Qual­i­fiers. The women's World Cup will be held in Aus­tralia and New Zealand in 2023.

The T&T team is be­ing coached by Welsh­man James Thomas and he is be­ing as­sist­ed by an­oth­er Welsh­man Char­lie Mitchell. The team be­gan train­ing more than a month ago and Thomas is plan­ning two live-in camps in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber re­spec­tive­ly, and as many in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match­es ahead of the start of qual­i­fy­ing ac­tion.

Charles told Guardian Me­dia Sports he is not ex­pect­ing any sur­pris­es when the ac­tion starts, once the T&T women's team pre­pares prop­er­ly.

"I don't ex­pect it to be like the Men's team be­cause we have a num­ber of re­al­ly good play­ers in the team present­ly. It's a group that we def­i­nite­ly should get out of eas­i­ly but my on­ly con­cern is whether the girls can deal with the psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

We see how many play­ers from dif­fer­ent sports such as ten­nis etc, have been com­plain­ing about men­tal health. Well, I be­lieve that once the girls can cope with the pres­sures of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and oth­er is­sues, then they will be fine. It will now de­pend on how well they adapt in the midst of the pan­dem­ic," Charles ex­plained.

Apart from COVID-19 and oth­er prob­lems, Charles be­lieves the Guyanese team could be the on­ly bit of con­cern for the T&T girls, as they have a very strong base of play­ers in Cana­da and the Unit­ed States.

"The Guyanese have al­ways been able to source a num­ber of play­ers from Cana­da par­tic­u­lar­ly, but once our team be­gins to train and do so prop­er­ly, we can be a dom­i­nant team at any tour­na­ment," Charles said fur­ther.

The T&T women are ex­pect­ed to open their cam­paign at home to Nicaragua.

Charles called on the play­ers to not take any team for grant­ed and point­ed to what hap­pened with the T&T men's team at the qual­i­fiers.

In the Men's World Cup qual­i­fiers, the TT team failed to emerge from a sim­ple group that com­prised Guyana, Puer­to Ri­co, Ba­hamas and St Kitts/Nevis.

Like the women, they need­ed to fin­ish as the top team but drew with Puer­to Ri­co 1-1 and Ba­hamas 0-0, and won against Guyana 3-0 and St Kitts/Nevis 2-0.