Na­tion­al women's coach Richard Hood has se­lect­ed a 23-mem­ber squad to face Mex­i­co in the CON­CA­CAF Women's Gold Cup Qual­i­fiers on Tues­day.

The unit is al­most equal­ly bal­anced in num­bers, ac­cord­ing to those play­ers that play abroad at clubs or uni­ver­si­ties and those based at clubs lo­cal­ly.

The squad com­pris­es mid­field­er Maria Frances-Ser­rant, de­fend­er Chris­sy Mitchell (Mc Conell Uni­ver­si­ty), Jolie St Louis (Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­aba­ma), de­fend­er Vic­to­ria Swift (Un­at­tached), de­fend­er Kedie John­son (Lille FC in France), and strik­er Tsa­ianne Le­an­der of Lu­ton Town Women's FC, all of whom are among 11 over­seas-based play­ers in a squad of 23.

Hood, fol­low­ing a train­ing ses­sion at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va yes­ter­day, said he chose the best squad avail­able to him at this point in time.

"As we all know, a num­ber of play­ers were not avail­able, so I think that the squad that we have is the best squad that is avail­able to us at this time. The ladies have been hard-work­ing, they are re­al­ly com­mit­ted to rep­re­sent­ing the coun­try and I re­al­ly look for­ward to see­ing what they can do.

"Be­cause of the avail­abil­i­ty, we tried to utilise the more ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers in crit­i­cal roles cen­tral­ly, as cen­tral de­fence and cen­tral mid­field, etc. It's not ide­al but I think the girls are re­al­ly ex­cit­ed about what they want to do. They re­al­ly want to get out there and play their hearts out for their coun­try," Hood ex­plained.

The team is ex­pect­ed to leave in groups over the next two days with the first batch sched­uled to leave last night for Mex­i­co, who they will face in two days. They will wing in to face the Mex­i­cans in high al­ti­tude con­di­tions and then head back home.

Ac­cord­ing to Hood, it will be about adapt­abil­i­ty for his charges who he said have im­proved their foot­ball and lev­el of fit­ness since they be­gan train­ing.

“For me is to see how we adapt to the high al­ti­tude and adapt to the pres­sure that we're ex­pect­ing to get from the team, as well as from their fans. It's more about adapt­abil­i­ty than any­thing else. We know that Mex­i­co is the top team in the group based on its rank­ing," Hood said.

"We're ex­pect­ing a dif­fi­cult game. We see what the Mex­i­cans are do­ing now, they are very dif­fer­ent from the tra­di­tion­al Mex­i­can teams, so we are pre­pared to deal with what they have to of­fer."

SQUAD

GOAL­KEEP­ERS: Kimi­ka Forbes (Un­at­tached), Si­mone Eligon (Un­at­tached (for­eign base), Malai­ka Dedi­er (St Au­gus­tine/Cu­napia Unit­ed)

DE­FEND­ERS: Crys­tal Mo­lin­eaux (Trinci­ty Na­tion­al FC), Tama­ra John­son (AC Port of Spain), Chris­sy Mitchell (Mc Con­nell Uni­ver­si­ty), Vic­to­ria Swift (Un­at­tached), Karyn Forbes (Un­at­tached), Brit­tney Williams (St. Au­gus­tine/Cu­napia Unit­ed), Christa Wa­ter­man (Un­at­tached (for­eign base), Kedie John­son (Lille F C - France),

MID­FIELD­ERS: Chel­cy Ralph (Po­lice FC), Re­nee Mike (Club San­do), Alex­cia Ali (Club San­do), Asha James (RC Saint De­nis - France), Talia Mar­tin (To­ba­go Chi­cas FC), Sarah De Gannes (West­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty), Naomie Guer­ra (AC Port of Spain FC), Tal­i­ah Si­mon (Al­aba­ma A&M Uni­ver­si­ty)

STRIK­ERS: Jolie St Louis ( Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­aba­ma), Re­anah Camp­bell (Un­at­tached- (for­eign base), Maris-Frances Ser­rant (Un­at­tached (for­eign base), Tsa­ianne Le­an­der (Lu­ton Town Women FC).