New­ly ap­point­ed T&T women's foot­ball coach Der­nelle Mas­call se­lect­ed 31 play­ers for a live-in camp over the week­end as prepa­ra­tion for the CON­CA­CAF Women’s Un­der-20 qual­i­fiers in Cu­ra­cao in­ten­si­fies.

She will have to pro­duce some mag­ic if her charges are to emerge from Group D with the qual­i­fiers set to take place from April 15-23 at the Rig­naal Jean Fran­cis­ca Sta­di­um in Willem­stad.

Mas­call, a for­mer na­tion­al women's play­er, was ap­point­ed the team's coach just a week ago and her charges will have to win the group to progress, along with the oth­er group win­ners, to join the Con­fed­er­a­tion's (CON­CA­CAF's) top teams–the Unit­ed States and Mex­i­co–in the CON­CA­CAF Women’s U-20 Cham­pi­onship.

Apart from T&T, the oth­er teams in the group are Puer­to Ri­co, Cay­man Is­lands, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Guade­loupe.

Mas­call's squad of 31 in­cludes six over­seas-based play­ers and as many from To­ba­go. It al­so com­pris­es nine play­ers from the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's (TTFA) High-Per­for­mance Pro­gramme (HPP).

Her prepa­ra­tion was boost­ed by three prac­tice match­es against vis­it­ing US out­fit St Cather­ine’s Uni­ver­si­ty.

Mas­call coached men's foot­ball out­fit Moru­ga FC with­out suc­cess in terms of top place­ment at the As­cen­sion Foot­ball League in 2021 but gained valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence at top-flight foot­ball in T&T. She told the TTFA me­dia re­cent­ly that the camp will be a good op­por­tu­ni­ty for her to as­sess the play­ers.

She said: "It’s a good op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sess the play­ers avail­able to vie for se­lec­tion dur­ing this week­end's camp. Six of the nine for­eign-based play­ers are with us. We are re­al­ly grate­ful for this camp as well as the three prac­tice match­es as it will serve as a good mea­sur­ing tool for the staff.

“We have the girls from the High-Per­for­mance pro­gramme who are ex­cit­ed to play as they bring that youth­ful en­er­gy and pas­sion to the set­up. They have al­so been en­gaged in a con­sis­tent train­ing pro­gramme over the past few months with the coach­es at the HPP. There are al­so play­ers from To­ba­go with the ex­pe­ri­ence of play­ing in the last CFU (Caribbean Foot­ball Union) U-14 In­vi­ta­tion­al and they are al­so very ea­ger to be part of the squad for the CON­CA­CAF cham­pi­onship. The in­clu­sion of Mar­ley Walk­er is al­so a boost as she comes with a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence,” Mas­call not­ed.

Walk­er is a sopho­more at James Is­land Char­ter High School in the US. She has been a mem­ber of the de­vel­op­men­tal pro­gramme for the TTFA and played for T&T in the CON­CA­CAF Women U-20 Cham­pi­onships in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, last year.

“We have the qual­i­ty and pas­sion and hope­ful­ly this camp will help to de­vel­op the co­he­sive­ness in time for the tour­na­ment in April,” said Mas­call.

The 2023 CON­CA­CAF Women’s U-20 Cham­pi­onship is sched­uled to take place from May 24-June 3, 2023 in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. The eight-team com­pe­ti­tion will qual­i­fy its top three fin­ish­ers for next year’s FI­FA U-20 Women’s World Cup.

The com­pe­ti­tion, which will be the first to fea­ture the Con­fed­er­a­tion’s re­cent­ly launched ex­cit­ing new youth com­pe­ti­tions for­mat, is sched­uled to be played April 14-23 across four venues in the Caribbean and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca.

The of­fi­cial draw took place on Feb­ru­ary 16 and 32 par­tic­i­pat­ing teams were split in­to six groups (two groups of six teams and four groups of five teams each).

TT SQUAD

Sadiel An­toine (gk), Rashe­da Archer, Jeni­ceia Ben­jamin, An­gel Berot, Arie Bha­gan, Tr­ishelle Charles, Lu­ann Craig, Kait­lyn Datwent, Alexan­dria En­nals, Jes­si­ca Jar­ra­gin, Orielle Mar­tin, Kani­ka Ro­driguez, Ja­da Shep­pard, Che­ri­na Steele, Mari­ah Williams, Tayeann Wylie, Mikalah Year­wood, J'Eleisha Alexan­der, Shadea An­drews, Shaki­ra Charles, Caris­sa Cow­an, Ja­da Gra­ham, Shaun­da Shep­pard, Talia Mar­tin, Amari­ah Ayum, Jhelysse An­tho­ny, Ris­hana Sookraj, Niki­ta Jack­son, Athena Jack­son, Sophia Keel, So­nia Lamarre, Mar­ley Walk­er, Ci­ce­ly-Ann Spencer-Wick­ham.

Group A – April 14-22 at Es­ta­dio Panamer­i­cano, San Cristo­bal, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic

Cana­da, El Sal­vador, Cu­ba, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Mar­tinique and US Vir­gin Is­lands

Group B – April 14-22 at Rig­naal Jean Fran­cis­ca Sta­di­um, Willem­stad, Cu­raçao

Haiti, Pana­ma, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Cu­ra­cao, Sint Maarten, Ba­hamas

Group C – April 15-23 at Es­ta­dio Fe­lix Sanchez, San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Guyana, Suri­name, Grena­da, Do­mini­ca

Group D – April 15-23 at Rig­naal Jean Fran­cis­ca Sta­di­um, Willem­stad, Cu­raçao

Puer­to Ri­co, T&T, Cay­man Is­lands, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Guade­loupe

Group E – April 14-22 at Es­ta­dio Na­cional, Man­agua, Nicaragua

Ja­maica, Hon­duras, Bermu­da, An­guil­la, French Guiana

Group F – April 15-23 at Es­ta­dio Na­cional, Man­agua, Nicaragua

Cos­ta Ri­ca, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Saint Lu­cia, Be­lize