WAL­TER AL­IBEY

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

wal­ter.al­ibey@guardian.co.tt

T&T’s se­nior women’s foot­ball team will go af­ter its sec­ond win of the Con­ca­caf Women’s Qual­i­fiers when they take on Hon­duras at the Es­ta­dio Chela­to Ucles in Tegu­ci­gal­pa, Hon­duras, this evening from 9 pm.

Fol­low­ing a six-day camp in Pana­ma ahead of the en­counter, na­tion­al coach Dami­an Brig­gs said his charges are where they want to be at this time, in terms of their readi­ness.

T&T is com­ing off a con­fi­dence-boost­ing 5-0 drub­bing of Bar­ba­dos at the Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos back on De­cem­ber 1 last year.

A vic­to­ry will set them in a po­si­tion of com­fort for the team’s lone home game against El Sal­vador on April 16.

Brig­gs charges as­sem­bled at the Pana­ma camp to fine-tune its phi­los­o­phy for the en­counter.

Speak­ing ahead of the match, Brig­gs said, “Our thoughts go­ing in­to the game to­mor­row (mean­ing to­day) ver­sus Hon­duras are that, you know, we’re quite pos­i­tive that we could come away with the re­sult we want from this game, and we look for­ward to the fi­nal game in this round. Prepa­ra­tions have gone quite well. We feel like we’re on track for what we want to achieve. You know, get­ting ac­cus­tomed to the con­di­tions and the weath­er, the cli­mate, and even just a bit ac­cus­tomed to the cul­ture around, the food, and stuff is all good.”

“The play­ers are quite pos­i­tive. They’ve tak­en on board the mes­sages and what we want to do and how we want to play, so it’s all go­ing quite well so far. As al­ways, as a coach, you want to see your play­ers get more and more fit, but at this mo­ment, we think we’re on track for where we want to be. Not try­ing to get us to peak too ear­ly, but to peak at the right time.”

“So, the prepa­ra­tion that we had with the camp in Pana­ma has helped with that. And now be­ing here in Hon­duras again with some of the work that we’ve done, we hope that with every­thing that we’ve done so far, every­thing comes to­geth­er on the evening of the fourth and could cul­mi­nate in the re­sults that we want to get.”

The Hon­durans went down in their open­er to El Sal­vador 3-0 on De­cem­ber 2 and will be ea­ger to re­cov­er.

Brig­gs told the me­dia his play­ers are ex­cit­ed ahead of the game. “As al­ways, the play­ers are the most im­por­tant thing, and they’re quite ex­cit­ed. They’re quite hap­py. They’ve nav­i­gat­ed some of the chal­lenges re­al­ly well. As with any­thing you do, there will be chal­lenges, but they have nav­i­gat­ed it re­al­ly well, and they’ve been quite ma­ture. And it’s good to see some of the more ma­ture play­ers even gath­er­ing around some of the less ma­ture play­ers and help­ing them to get through. But the mood in it­self is one that’s buzzing.”

“It’s an ex­cit­ing time, and it’s a time where all the play­ers be­lieve in what we come here to do, and they be­lieve that we can get the de­sired re­sult.”

T&T SQUAD

Goal­keep­ers: 21 Aky­la Wal­cott, 1 Si­mone Eligon, 18 Tene­sha Palmer

De­fend­ers: 23 Chris­sy Mitchell, 5 Ci­ce­ly Spencer Wick­ham, 22 Kait­lyn Dar­went, 14 Ke­dia John­son, 2 Shau­nalee Govia, 15 Christa Wa­ter­man, 6 Vic­to­ria Swift, 3 Kani­ka Ro­driguez

Mid­field­ers:

20 Maria-Frances Ser­rant, 7 Liana Hinds, 16 Sheneil Find­ley, 12 Orielle Mar­tin, 4 Lo­rall Ro­main

For­wards: 11 Aaliyah Prince, 10 Alex­cia Ali, 17 Ar­i­an­na Bor­neo, 19 Ken­nya Cord­ner, 9 Niki­ta Go­sine, 13 Gabrielle Williams