Trinidad and To­ba­go boys’ un­der-15 foot­ball un­der the guid­ance of coach Ran­dolph Boyce will meet fel­low Caribbean par­tic­i­pants in St. Kitts/Nevis in their open­ing match in Group S when the in­au­gur­al Eight-A-Side FI­FA Un­der-15 World Cup & Fes­ti­val kicks off in Baku, Azer­bai­jan on Sat­ur­day. The tour­na­ment runs un­til Oc­to­ber 31.

T&T have been drawn along­side the Cay­man Is­lands, Egypt, Iraq, Macau, Chi­na, and St. Kitts and Nevis, giv­ing the young na­tion­al team the op­por­tu­ni­ty to test them­selves against op­po­si­tion from dif­fer­ent re­gions of the world.

The his­toric com­pe­ti­tion forms part of FI­FA’s ex­pand­ed com­mit­ment to youth foot­ball de­vel­op­ment and, for its in­au­gur­al edi­tion, will be open to boys’ teams from FI­FA Mem­ber As­so­ci­a­tions around the world. FI­FA has con­firmed that the event will be staged in a cen­tral­ized lo­ca­tion in Azer­bai­jan and de­signed specif­i­cal­ly around the de­vel­op­men­tal needs of un­der-15 play­ers.

Match­es will fea­ture an adapt­ed for­mat, with short­er play­ing times, small­er pitch­es, and teams com­pris­ing eight play­ers per side and two 20-minute halves.

FI­FA has de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to give young play­ers greater ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball while cre­at­ing de­vel­op­men­tal ex­pe­ri­ences across cul­tures and con­fed­er­a­tions.

The FI­FA Coun­cil ap­proved the in­tro­duc­tion of the Un­der-15 fes­ti­val-style com­pe­ti­tion in De­cem­ber 2025, with the first edi­tion fea­tur­ing boys’ teams in 2026.

The 2027 edi­tion will fea­ture girls’ teams, while from 2028 FI­FA in­tends to in­vite mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions to par­tic­i­pate with both boys’ and girls’ Un­der-15 teams in sep­a­rate com­pe­ti­tions.

Fol­low­ing to­day’s match against St Kitts/Nevis, T&T will play two match­es to­mor­row (Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 25), against Iraq at 10.15 am and the Cay­man Is­lands at 5 pm, re­spec­tive­ly, be­fore end­ing pool play a day lat­er with two more match­es: first ver­sus Egypt at 9 am and then against Macau, Chi­na, at 3.45 pm.

Over­all, around 3,000 teenagers from 192 coun­tries will com­pete in 32 groups in the tour­na­ment, rep­re­sent­ing teams such as Eng­land, Brazil, France, Ar­genti­na, and Spain, with oth­er na­tions such as the Sey­chelles, Van­u­atu, Amer­i­can Samoa, and Turks and Caicos Is­lands al­so play­ing, which serves to high­light the range of teams com­pet­ing.

Among the teams not par­tic­i­pat­ing are Ukraine, Ger­many, the Nether­lands, the USA, and North Ko­rea.

Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no, the FI­FA pres­i­dent, had pre­vi­ous­ly held con­ver­sa­tions over the past year with pri­vate in­vestors to ex­plore de­vel­op­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing an un­der-15s World Cup event in­spired by base­ball’s Lit­tle League World Se­ries.

This al­so in­clud­ed dis­cus­sions on host­ing the open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­monies at Dis­ney theme parks in Or­lan­do, Flori­da.

But with those pro­pos­als fail­ing to ma­te­ri­alise, and the tour­na­ment, which has been dri­ven on the tech­ni­cal side by Ar­sene Wenger, FI­FA’s chief of glob­al foot­ball de­vel­op­ment, is due to get un­der­way in Baku on Oc­to­ber 24.

The youth com­pe­ti­tion was ap­proved by the FI­FA Coun­cil, FI­FA’s main de­ci­sion-mak­ing body, in De­cem­ber 2025.

Un­like oth­er FI­FA tour­na­ments, there is no qual­i­fi­ca­tion process, with the gov­ern­ing body in­stead ex­tend­ing an in­vite to all 211 of its mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions, though not all of them will be in Baku for the event. FI­FA an­tic­i­pat­ed they would have around 155-160 teams com­pet­ing, but the num­ber of con­firmed sides is 189.

The ma­jor­i­ty of the near­ly 1,000 match­es will take place at the Hov­san Com­pe­ti­tion Com­plex, though the open­ing fix­ture—Azer­bai­jan v Tim­or-Leste—is be­ing held at Baku Crys­tal Hall to­day, with the open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­monies, along with the six-tier fi­nals, all card­ed for Baku Crys­tal Hall.

Al­though this in­au­gur­al tour­na­ment is for boys, FI­FA has an­nounced a girls’ tour­na­ment is due to take place in 2027, though a host is yet to be an­nounced.

From 2028, FI­FA has said, via a me­dia re­lease in Sep­tem­ber, that both boys’ and girls’ tour­na­ments are planned to take place an­nu­al­ly.

An­oth­er key fac­tor for host­ing the un­der-15s event and ex­tend­ing an in­vite to all 211 mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions was that it of­fered many chil­dren the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete at a World Cup, which, con­sid­er­ing some of the small­er na­tions in Baku, may not be a pos­si­bil­i­ty at se­nior lev­el.

The hope is it will on­ly fur­ther de­vel­op the young­sters—and the coach­es.

The com­pet­ing na­tion­al teams will have the cost of their air trav­el and ac­com­mo­da­tion paid for by FI­FA.

The par­tic­i­pat­ing teams have been split in­to 32 groups that are aligned with the men’s na­tion­al rank­ings and will ini­tial­ly be played in a round-robin for­mat.

There are six tiers, and each side will need to qual­i­fy for the tour­na­ment stage, which will then lead to a team win­ning their re­spec­tive tier. How­ev­er, on­ly the win­ners of Tier A will be crowned cham­pi­ons. In to­tal, there will be near­ly 1,000 match­es across six days, and each na­tion­al team will play at least nine times.

Each team is al­lowed 14 play­ers and up to six staff mem­bers per team. If, for ex­am­ple, one of the small­er na­tions does not have coach­es, then FI­FA will pro­vide them via its Tal­ent De­vel­op­ment Scheme.

T&T un­der-15 boys squad

Goal­keep­ers: 1.Malachi Leach (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/ City FC), 13.Samuel Ho­sein (Na­pari­ma Col­lege/ Union Hall FC),

De­fend­ers: 3.Gabriel Man­soor (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/ Pro Se­ries), 4.Hasheem Sa­landy (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/ City FC), 12.Keimani By­ron (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege),

Mid­field­ers: 2.Soren Shade (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San F’do/ Pre­mier SC), 5.Ryan Francette (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San F’do/ City FC), 6.Amani Delph (Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege/ Pro Se­ries), 8.Jaden Mar­celle (Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary/ Ball Blasters), 10.Aaden Jones (Hillview Col­lege/ Creek SC), 14.Jay­lon Car­ring­ton (St Bene­dict’s Col­lege/ Cox Coach­ing School),

For­wards: 7.Ji­air Nan­ton (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege/ City FC). 9.Djoshua Cyrus (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San F’do/ Union Hall FC), 11.Zaa’van Joseph (St Mary’s Col­lege/ Pro Se­ries)

Head coach: Ran­dolph Boyce

T&T match sched­ule

To­day (Oc­to­ber 24): T&T vs St Kitts/Nevis, 11.30 am

To­mor­row (Oc­to­ber 25): T&T vs Iraq, 10.15 am

To­mor­row (Oc­to­ber 25): T&T vs Cay­man Is­lands, 5 pm

Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 26: T&T vs Egypt, 9 am

Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 26: T&T vs Macau, Chi­na 3.45 pm