Bel­gium based Josi­ah Wil­son of club Cer­cle Brugge K.S.V is among the 24 play­ers named yes­ter­day by na­tion­al coach An­gus Eve an­nounced to con­test the CON­CA­CAF Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onships in Hon­duras from June 18-Ju­ly 3.

Wil­son one of ten for­eign-base tak­lents that got Eve’s ap­proval from among the 37 play­ers that were in camp.

The squad will trav­el to Cos­ta Ri­ca for a train­ing camp. The team has been drawn in­to Group F along­side CON­CA­CAF gi­ants Mex­i­co, Haiti and Suri­name. The oth­er groups are: Group E: Unit­ed States, Cu­ba, Cana­da, Saint Kitts and Nevis; Group F: Mex­i­co, Haiti, T&T, Suri­name; Group G: Pana­ma, El Sal­vador, Guatemala, Aru­ba and Group H: Hon­duras, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Ja­maica, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.

T&T opens Group F against Haiti on June 19 at the Es­ta­dio Morazan in San Pe­dro Su­la and will face Mex­i­co on June 21 and Suri­name on June 23 at the same venue.

The top three teams in the group will ad­vance to the round of 16, where they will be joined by the four teams ad­vanc­ing from the 2021 CON­CA­CAF U-20 Cham­pi­onship qual­i­fy­ing. Un­like the pre­vi­ous edi­tions, the com­pe­ti­tion will de­ter­mine not on­ly the four CON­CA­CAF rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the 2023 FI­FA U-20 World Cup in In­done­sia but al­so the two CON­CA­CAF rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the 2024 Sum­mer Olympics.

Be­fore com­menc­ing train­in on May 3, Wil­son was amon the 78 play­ers, ei­ther el­i­gi­ble to rep­re­sent T&T through parent­age or place of birth that were screened in Wash­ing­ton DC (48 play­ers) and Fort Laud­erdale, USA (30) over the East­er week­end.

Eve, who is al­so coach of T&T se­nior men’s team, over­saw a res­i­den­tial train­ing camp at the Home of Foot­ball in Cou­va from May 19-28 con­sist­ing of 37 play­ers be­fore Sat­ur­day’s fi­nal se­lec­tion.

Dur­ing the prepa­ra­tions, the team played six prac­tice match­es, de­feat­ing De­fence Force (2-1), Po­lice (1-0), Cunu­pia FC (4-1), los­ing to Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers (3-1), Guyana Se­nior Men’s team (1-0) and draw­ing with AC Port-of-Spain 2-2.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion on Sun­day, “For the last two weeks, I saw the kids come in. We have a par­tic­u­lar way we like to play and for the most part, every sin­gle kid gave their best, they gave a hun­dred per­cent. I was very hap­py with the camp. I think T&T’s foot­ball is in a good place, see­ing these kids com­ing up,” Eve said.

He added that “Un­for­tu­nate­ly we can’t keep all of them and maybe put some of them in an­oth­er league so we can con­tin­ue see­ing them like the big­ger coun­tries such as Mex­i­co and the US do. But we will keep the boys in a data­base so we will know how to lo­cate them and mon­i­tor their progress. Among the play­ers who made it in­to the fi­nal cut- some of them have a bit of in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence. Some would have been with the pre­vi­ous U-15 team a cou­ple of years ago and some would have been in Stern’s (John) pre­vi­ous Un­der 17 team. And then we had some stand­outs from the lo­cal league here. We have a cou­ple of play­ers who are al­so ply­ing their trade in the MLS, so it’s a nice cadre of play­ers.”

He said, “The staff with the Un­der 20s will leave on June 5 and we have two prac­tice match­es. Reynold Car­ring­ton will be in charge of that group. We will join them on the 14th af­ter we play our last CNL match on June 13.”