Na­tion­al Un­der-17 coach Ayan­na Rus­sell and her charges in­tend to be dis­ci­plined in their ap­proach to the Unit­ed States when the teams tan­gle at 7 pm Mon­day night at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va, in Group C of the fi­nal round of the Con­ca­caf World Cup Qual­i­fiers.

The match will fol­low an ear­li­er en­counter at 5 pm be­tween El Sal­vador and Hon­duras.

Rus­sell and her charges had their fi­nal train­ing ses­sion yes­ter­day at the Phase II Recre­ation Ground in La Hor­quet­ta and she told the me­dia that while she would have liked to have more match­es to pro­vide the girls with more match fit­ness, both she and her staff did what they could have done, and it was good.

The team earned a berth in­to the fi­nal round as one of the two best sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers in the ear­li­er round, by clob­ber­ing the Unit­ed States Vir­gin Is­lands (USVI) 5-0 and shut­ting out Be­lize 2-0, be­fore go­ing down 1-0 to Hon­duras in their fi­nal match at the same venue from Jan­u­ary 27 to Feb­ru­ary 1.

Rus­sell quizzed on her ap­proach, said: "Go­ing in­to these match­es, as I said, is about be­ing dis­ci­plined and not about open­ing up too much. So, we know what we are strong at, and we al­so know what they are strong at so we will try to lim­it what they do well on our side and con­trol what we can con­trol.

"Each team in this round is go­ing to be very dif­fi­cult, so it's very im­por­tant that we stay dis­ci­plined. We are fo­cused on cer­tain ar­eas on the field and how we ap­proach the game in terms of the ar­eas on the field and the op­po­nents."

Her team has been strength­ened by the in­clu­sion of Diem Sealey of FC Dal­las, who is the daugh­ter of for­mer T&T So­ca War­riors strik­er Scott Sealey, as well as St Joseph’s Con­vent (PoS) and Pro Se­ries goal­keep­er Alex­ia Dol­land, Taya Williams, de­fend­er Cher­ine Steele and her sis­ter Che­ri­na Steele, and strik­er Giu­liana Mey­er of USA’s Philadel­phia Ukraini­ans, who is al­so a use­ful wing-back.

The tour­na­ment, set to run from to­day (March 31) to April 6, will see the T&T team re­turn­ing to ac­tion on Wednes­day against El Sal­vador at 7 pm at the same venue, while the USA and Hon­duras will square off in the first game at 5 pm. They will con­clude the group on Sat­ur­day (April 5) by meet­ing Hon­duras in the late match at 7 pm, as the US and El Sal­vador clash at 5 pm.

Apart from Group C, the oth­er groups to con­test the fi­nal round will see Mex­i­co, Haiti, Cos­ta Ri­ca, and Bermu­da com­pete in Group A, with Group B com­pris­ing Cana­da, Puer­to Ri­co, Pana­ma, and Nicaragua.

For the fi­nal round, Cana­da, Haiti, Mex­i­co, and the USA have been seed­ed, while Puer­to Ri­co, Hon­duras, Pana­ma, El Sal­vador, Cos­ta Ri­ca, and Nicaragua ad­vanced as the six Round One group win­ners. T&T and Bermu­da qual­i­fied as the two Round One best sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers.

Hon­duras fin­ished top of Group B in T&T af­ter beat­ing Be­lize 2-0 and the US Vir­gin Is­lands 4-0 in their oth­er match­es for a max­i­mum of nine points, three more than host T&T.

El Sal­vador al­so claimed the win­ning spot in Group D by de­mol­ish­ing An­guil­la 9-0, ham­mer­ing Cu­ra­cao 6-0 and ham­mer­ing Guatemala 7-0 for a to­tal of nine points. Ad­mis­sion is $40.

T&T U-17 women’s team

Goal­keep­ers: Zaira Aimey (Welling Utd FC/Eng­land), Alex­ia Dol­land (Pro Se­ries), Ken­isha Tay­lor (Black Pan­thers)

De­fend­ers: Kait­lyn Dar­went (Pro Se­ries), Hac­k­eemar Goodridge (Trend­set­ter Hawks), Cher­ine Steele (UTT), Taya Williams (Pro Se­ries), Kani­ka Ro­driguez (UTT), Mikaela Year­wood (Car­di­nal FC), Jes­si­ca Nes­bitt (Pro Se­ries)

Mid­field­ers: Che­ri­na Steele (QPCC), Ty’Kaiya Den­nis (Jew­els), San­ni Wil­son (Flori­da Utd/USA), Rori Git­tens (Pro Se­ries), Zye­sha Potts (Jew­els), Cher­ine Steele (UTT), Madi­son Camp­bell (Jew­els), Giu­liana Mey­er (Philadel­phia Ukran­ian/USA)

For­wards: Diem Sealey (FC Dal­las), Rashe­da Archer (Club San­do), Mia Lee Chong (Or­lan­do City Acad­e­my/USA), Orielle Mar­tin (Club San­do),

Re­serves: Jay­da Her­bert (Trend­set­ter Hawks), Daniel­la Paul (Trend­set­ter Hawks). Alyssa Singh

Match­es

To­day

EL Sal­vador vs Hon­duras, 4 pm

USA vs T&T, 7 pm

Wednes­day (April 2)

Hon­duras vs USA 4pm

T&T vs El Sal­vador 7pm

Sat­ur­day (April 5)

USA vs El Sal­vador, 4 pm

Hon­duras vs T&T, 7 pm