T&T’s Un­der-17 foot­ballers face a daunt­ing task to over­take their Cen­tral Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts, Mex­i­co, from 7 pm Thurs­day night if they are to have a chance of pro­gress­ing out of Group A as the win­ner in the Con­ca­caf Un­der-17 World Cup Qual­i­fiers at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

With on­ly the top team mov­ing on to an au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion from the qual­i­fiers, coach Ran­dolph Boyce’s charges need more than just a vic­to­ry, but rather a win by ap­prox­i­mate­ly a 10-0 mar­gin to ex­ceed the Mex­i­cans on goal dif­fer­ence, as both would be on nine points.

Re­gion­al ri­vals Bar­ba­dos pose the on­ly oth­er chal­lenge for the T&T team when they go up against Saint Mar­tin in the open­ing game of the sta­di­um’s dou­ble­head­er from 4 pm. Af­ter vic­to­ries over T&T 1-0 on the open­ing day and Sint Maarten 7-1, the Ba­jans, like T&T, will have to win big if they are to pre­vail as group win­ners.

Fol­low­ing con­sec­u­tive loss­es against Pe­ru twice, 6-0 and 6-1, in in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match­es, and then Bar­ba­dos, the young T&T play­ers seemed to have found the goal-scor­ing touch they were look­ing for against Sint Maarten with a con­fi­dence-boost­ing 8-0 thrash­ing on Mon­day.

Still, Boyce has called for more ef­fort, say­ing the mar­gin of vic­to­ry should have been much wider to as­sist their cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. Boyce told the me­dia at the post-match press con­fer­ence fol­low­ing the Sint Maarten clash that his play­ers need to find the con­fi­dence and be­lief with­in them­selves to im­prove their goal scor­ing.

“It’s just about how they be­come com­fort­able in this sce­nario and in this sit­u­a­tion. They say, ‘Well, yes, I’m com­fort­able in my abil­i­ty to be able to do it,’ and that is the big thing. They are com­fort­able enough in them­selves to say, Well, yes, I can do it. That is the part that they have to be­lieve, be­cause we be­lieve in them, but they need to be­lieve in their abil­i­ty and them­selves that they can do it,” Boyce told the me­dia.

He said once that be­lief was there, then the score against Sint Maarten could have been way more than it was.

The Mex­i­cans, ex­pect­ed­ly, have been more than con­vinc­ing to date, start­ing with a 10-0 drub­bing of Sint Maarten and a 4-0 tri­umph over Saint Mar­tin last week. On Mon­day, they con­tin­ued their un­blem­ished record by beat­ing the Ba­jans 4-1 at the same venue. Quizzed about the Mex­i­cans be­ing their main fo­cus, Boyce said he want­ed to take the Mex­i­can game on its mer­it, be­liev­ing that the ex­pe­ri­ence gained against the Pe­ru­vians would help lat­er tonight.

TO­DAY’S MATCH­ES

Bar­ba­dos vs Saint Mar­tin, 4pm @ Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um

T&T vs Mex­i­co, 7pm @ Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*GD*Pts

1.Mex­i­co*3*3*0*0*18*1*17*9

2.T&T*3*2*0*1*9*1*8*6

3.Bar­ba­dos*3*2*0*1*9*5*4*6

4.Saint Mar­tin*3*1*0*2*3*5*-2*3

5.Sint Maarten*4*0*0*4*1*28*-27*0

T&T Un­der-17 Boys Con­ca­caf ros­ter

Goal­keep­ers

Necose Moore (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege/T&T), Levi Williams (In­ter Mi­a­mi/USA), Mikhail Clement (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/Cox Foot­ball Acad­e­my/T&T)

De­fend­ers

Jay­lon Roberts (St Mary’s Col­lege/Car­di­nals Foot­ball Acad­e­my/T&T), Je­re­mi­ah Daniel (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/Union Hall/T&T), Ke­nai Richard­son (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/Cox Foot­ball Acad­e­my), An­to­nio Hills (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/Club San­do FC/T&T).

Mid­field­ers

Reagen Rowe (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/City FC/T&T), Se­bastien James (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/Cox Coach­ing School/T&T), Dono­van Dray­ton Jr (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/T&T), Finn De Fre­itas (St Mary’s Col­lege/City FC), Adriel Fau­re (St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege/T&T), Chris­t­ian Pitt (Toron­to FC Acad­e­my/Cana­da), An­tu­an Loui­son (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/T&T), Akel Vesprey (Munro Col­lege/Ja­maica)

For­wards

Ja­sai Theophilus (QRC/Pro Se­ries/T&T), Je­re­mai Nan­ton (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/City FC/T&T), Je­lani Stoute (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege/T&T), Kanye Gals­gow (T&T), Je­lani Stoute (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege/T&T), J’Meke Watkins (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary/T&T)