Na­tion­al women's coach Richard Hood is ex­pect­ed on Sat­ur­day to name his 18-mem­ber women's team which will de­part on Sun­day for Mex­i­co City where they will face that coun­try's women's team in their 2024 CON­CA­CAF Women's Gold Cup Group A qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ment, at the Es­ta­dio Hi­dal­go (Pachu­ca de So­to) at over 8,000 feet in high al­ti­tude on Wednes­day from 10 pm (TT time).

On Fri­day, Hood took his lo­cal­ly based play­ers through their fi­nal train­ing scrim­mage, a friend­ly en­counter with Fa­ti­ma Col­lege Un­der-16 Boys line-up at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo and he was hope­ful his play­ers would come through the en­counter with­out any in­juries ahead of their de­par­ture.

The T&T women's team which is cur­rent­ly in tran­si­tion is ex­pect­ed to fea­ture vet­er­an mid­field­er and cap­tain Karyn Forbes and her sis­ter goal­keep­er Kami­ka, as well as Vic­to­ria Swift, Nao­mi Guer­ra, and Chelsea Ralph in its line­up along with 11 oth­er over­seas play­ers, in­clu­sive of Maria Frances-Ser­rant, Asha James, and Kedie John­son.

No­table ab­sen­tees in­clude Amer­i­can-born Hi­bern­ian FC de­fend­er Liana Hinds, Ken­nya "Ya Ya" Cord­ner, and Cay­la Mac Far­lane, who have all ba­si­cal­ly called time on their in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball ca­reers.

Fol­low­ing the clash against the Mex­i­cans, who host­ed Puer­to Ri­con last night at the Es­ta­dio Azteca in Mex­i­co City, T&T will play at home against Mex­i­co on Oc­to­ber 27 be­fore fac­ing Puer­to Ri­co (away) on De­cem­ber 1 and at home on De­cem­ber 5.

Af­ter 90 group stage match­es, which in­clude home and away play with­in each League and group, the top fin­ish­ers in each of the League A groups (three teams) will qual­i­fy for the 2024 W Gold Cup Group Stage. Fur­ther­more, the sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers in each of the League A groups (three teams) and the first-place fin­ish­ers in each of the League B groups (three teams) will ad­vance to the 2024 W Gold Cup pre­lim­i­nar­ies.