WAL­TER AL­IBEY

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

T&T men’s foot­ball coach Den­nis Lawrence has called up un­der-20 strik­er Isa­iah Lee and Dan­ish goal­keep­er Nick­las Fren­derup for next Thurs­day's in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly en­counter with Iran.

Fren­derup is a 25-year-old goal­keep­er who plays for Nor­we­gian club Sandnes Ulf in the top flight do­mes­tic foot­ball League. And at a press con­fer­ence at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main Cou­va yes­ter­day, just mo­ments af­ter T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent David John-Williams took the heads of the var­i­ous sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions on a tour of the much-fan­cied Home of Foot­ball, Lawrence said Fren­derup reached out to him, ex­press­ing an in­ter­est to rep­re­sent the coun­try.

Lawrence said af­ter view­ing a few video ses­sions of the cus­to­di­an he agreed to give him a try as he looked good.

The lanky TT coach al­so added un­der-20 strik­er Lee to his ros­ter for the match, af­ter a se­ries of im­pres­sive per­for­mances for the TT team cur­rent­ly at the CON­CA­CAF Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onship in the Unit­ed States, which is be­ing used as a qual­i­fi­er for the FI­FA Un­der-20 World Cup, card­ed for Poland next year.

Lee who at­tends Col­lege in the US is T&T’s top scor­er with three goals at the CON­CA­CAF Cham­pi­onship. Lawrence told a me­dia gath­er­ing he has had to make sev­er­al changes due to in­juries. Among the ca­su­al­ties in­clud­ed a torn ham­string to speedy and skil­ful mid­field­er of Ironi Kiry­at Shmona in the Is­raeli Pre­mier League Levi Gar­cia, and Ne­veal Hack­shaw, the Charleston Bat­tery mid­field­er/for­ward in the USL, who was in­jured in train­ing yes­ter­day.

Shah­don Win­ches­ter, who plays for Seinäjoen Jalka­pal­lok­er­ho in the Finnish Foot­ball League has al­so caused a headache for the TT coach ahead of next week's im­por­tant en­counter to be played at the Aza­di Sta­di­um, Tehran in Iran, at 6 pm, TT time.

They are sched­uled to be re­placed by Sau­di Ara­bi­an-based play­er Lester Pelti­er and Lee. Lawrence said fol­low­ing the re­cent de­feat by Thai­land in his team's last friend­ly match, he will be aim­ing for a pos­i­tive re­sult, not­ing his se­lec­tion is cur­rent­ly the best he has avail­able to him at this time.

Lee is ex­pect­ed will meet up with the squad in Fort Laud­erdale to­mor­row, en route to Tehran.

TEAM:

Shel­don Bateau (FC Kairat, Kaza­khstan), Cordell Cato (Char­lotte In­de­pen­dence, USA), Daneil Cyrus (Al-Orobah FC, Sau­di Ara­bia), Aubrey David (Vaasan Pal­loseu­ra FC, Fin­land), Nick­las Fren­derup (Sandnes Ulf, Nor­way), Adri­an Fon­cette (Po­lice FC, TT), Cur­tis Gon­za­les (De­fence Force FC, TT), Ataulla Guer­ra (Charleston Bat­tery, USA), Tris­ton Hodge (W Con­nec­tion FC, TT), Akeem Humphrey (Club San­do FC, TT), Khaleem Hy­land (Al Faisaly FC, Sau­di Ara­bia), Alvin Jones (W Con­nec­tion FC, TT), Jo­evin Jones (Darm­stadt 98, Ger­many), Ke­ston Julien (As Trencin Fut­bal Club, Slo­va­kia), Isa­iah Lee (Mon­roe Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, USA), Nathan Lewis (In­dy Eleven FC, USA), Du­ane Muck­ette (Cen­tral FC, TT), Le­ston Paul (Cen­tral FC, TT), Lester Pelti­er (Club Al Mu­jaz­zal, Sau­di Ara­bia), Mar­vin Phillip (Cen­tral FC, TT), Jo­mal Williams (W Con­nec­tion FC, TT).