T&T's Un­der-17 men will have to sharp­en up on a few ar­eas first, to have a chance of pro­gress­ing against El Sal­vador when the teams meet in the round of 16s of the CON­CA­CAF U-17 Cham­pi­onships in An­tigua, Guatemala, tonight at 9 pm at the Es­ta­dio Pen­sati­vo.

Coach Shawn Coop­er's team has been bat­tling a few nig­gling in­juries, in ad­di­tion to, the im­prove­ment need­ed in the de­fen­sive de­part­ment, which Coop­er ad­mit­ted in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day.

In­stru­men­tal strik­er Der­rel Gar­cia, who scored in their team's open­ing two match­es of the tour­na­ment, will be doubt­ful af­ter pick­ing up an in­step in­jury in the game against the USA.

Apart from that, Coop­er said his play­ers have been strug­gling with prop­er de­ci­sion-mak­ing, while his de­fence has al­so strug­gled to keep the line. He de­scribed the El Sal­vado­ri­ans as a de­cent team with a few qual­i­ty play­ers.

"It's a ball game, there's no re­sult to the game as yet. It's just about us set­tling down ear­ly and get­ting in­to their faces and play­ing on the tran­si­tion. When we win the ball we have to make the best use of it and I don't think we have been mak­ing the best choic­es.

"A lot of peo­ple are com­plain­ing that we're not build­ing out of the back and we're play­ing long balls, but at this point in time, if we're hav­ing cer­tain is­sues, we have to play a cer­tain way and then we go for­ward. It's not about look­ing nice, it's about play­ing to the team's strengths.

"It's a tac­ti­cal game, it's a chess game so you will play some long and you will play some short, you in­vite them you get in the back etc," Coop­er ex­plained.

"El Sal­vador is a de­cent-play­ing team, they are very strong go­ing down their right side, they have a few qual­i­ty play­ers, but they can be scored on. The prob­lem is that we're try­ing to deal with our de­fen­sive or­gan­i­sa­tion, get­ting the play­ers not to break the lines, the dis­ci­pline in hold­ing the lines and clos­ing down peo­ple and see­ing peo­ple mov­ing in­to the spaces be­hind our backs.

"It will take some time but we will get it.

"An­oth­er is­sue we're hav­ing is when we're com­ing out of the park, it's mak­ing the prop­er de­ci­sions such as the se­lec­tion of pass­es, so some­times we tend to go down one side when we could change it up and be a bit more pa­tient in the build-up," Coop­er ex­plained.

The T&T team lost their open­ing two match­es against Cana­da (3-2) and the Unit­ed States (3-1), how­ev­er, they played to a 1-1 tie with Bar­ba­dos to ad­vance to the round of 16s as the third team in Group F.

A vic­to­ry tonight can put them on a path to a clash with re­gion­al gi­ant Mex­i­co.

Coop­er said he be­lieves in his play­ers and his team but their prepa­ra­tion has put them in a po­si­tion now where they are punch­ing above their weight, in re­la­tion to, the prepa­ra­tion of their op­po­nents.

He said, how­ev­er, that the of­fen­sive pow­er that his team pos­sess­es, can be a game-chang­er for them.