Ailan An­drew Pan­ton, the son of for­mer Miss Uni­verse Wendy Fitzwilliams, is among na­tion­al coach Shawn Coop­er’s 41-man squad for the 2023 CON­CA­CAF Men’s Un­der-17 cham­pi­onship sched­uled for Guatemala next month.

Six­teen-year-old Pan­ton, is al­so the son of for­mer Ja­maican sen­a­tor David Pan­ton, who was Fitzwilliam’s ex-hus­band.

Coop­er has been over­see­ing prepa­ra­tions of the squad for the past few months and is now fo­cus­ing on the fi­nal leg of the build-up and is ex­pect­ed to name his fi­nal team in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Coop­er said: “We’re com­ing to that phase of the prepa­ra­tions where pre­ci­sion mat­ters and what­ev­er we do is based on get­ting the best pos­si­ble group of play­ers in the fi­nal squad for the tour­na­ment.”

“Of course, there have been some mi­nor chal­lenges but this is not un­ex­pect­ed and we’ve worked around this so far. The next cou­ple of weeks will be crit­i­cal be­cause we are al­so await­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the avail­abil­i­ty of some of the over­seas-based play­ers due to com­mit­ments with their teams out­side. But the group in train­ing now has been com­mit­ted, dis­ci­plined and dri­ven to­wards not just mak­ing the fi­nal cut but al­so com­pet­ing when we get to Guatemala. I think the ef­fort giv­en by all the play­ers and staff needs to be com­mend­ed so far but of course, this is just the build-up to­wards the re­al thing in a few weeks so have to be switched on through­out,” he added.

T&T will open its cam­paign against Cana­da in Group F on Feb­ru­ary 11, be­fore fac­ing the USA on Feb­ru­ary 13 and Bar­ba­dos two days lat­er. Af­ter the Group stage, the top three na­tions in each group will ad­vance to the knock­out stage, join­ing the four 2022 CON­CA­CAF U-17 Men’s Qual­i­fiers (CU17Q) group win­ners: Bermu­da, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Nicaragua, and Puer­to Ri­co.

The Round of 16 match­es will take place Feb­ru­ary 18 and 19, at both venues, fol­lowed by the quar­ter­fi­nals (Feb­ru­ary 21 and 22), semi­fi­nals (Feb­ru­ary 24) and Fi­nal (Feb­ru­ary 26) in Guatemala City.

All knock-out stage match­es will be played in a sin­gle-match di­rect elim­i­na­tion for­mat and the four semi­fi­nal­ists will qual­i­fy for the FI­FA U-17 World Cup Pe­ru 2023.

PRO­VI­SION­AL SQUAD

GOAL­KEEP­ERS

Ailan Pan­ton (Dar­ling­ton School), Jaden Ot­t­ley (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege), Thane De­venish (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege)

DE­FEND­ERS

David Hospedales (Tri­mont Col­lege), Lyshaun Mor­ris (St Bene­dict’s), Jaden Williams (Fa­ti­ma), Joshua Fi­garo (Trin­i­ty Col­lege East), Josi­ah Con­nell (CIC), Ky­ron Joseph (Na­pari­ma), Yohance Ather­ton (Fa­ti­ma), Dar­ius Jor­dan (Fa­ti­ma), Samuel Dun­can (Char­lotte FC), Jaden Chan Tack (South Plan­ta­tion)

MID­FIELD­ERS

Josi­ah Ochoa (St Bene­dict’s), Der­rell Gar­cia (St Bene­dict’s), Isa­iah Ja­cob (St Bene­dict’s), Raul Per­ri­era (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege), Kade Col­lier (Fa­ti­ma), Je­re­mi­ah Niles (St Bene­dict’s), Lo­gan Main­got (Fa­ti­ma), Nathan Quashie (QRC), Ay­don Caruth (QRC), Tau Lam­see (QRC), Seth Hadeed (Fa­ti­ma), Lin­dell Sween (San Juan), Je­re­mi­ah Cateau (Hill­Grove High School), Eli­jah Hicks (Home School), Ar­mani Rowe (St Bene­dict’s Prep), Rio Car­dines (Crys­tal Palace), Anayo Etum­nu Jr (North­wood School), Do­minic Wil­son (Cum­ber­land Val­ley HS), Kai-Re­eceAdam-Coll­man (Crys­tal Palace),

FOR­WARDS

Malachai Webb (St Bene­dict’s), Vaughn Clement (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege), Michael Chaves (Fa­ti­ma), An­dell Fras­er (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege), Jor­dan Fer­di­nand (St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary), Tyrell Moore (Mc Each­ern High School), Bran­don Dhanoolal (Irv­ing­ton High School), Lu­ka His­lop, Quin­ton Wil­son (Toron­to FC)