The fu­ture of T&T foot­ball was on full dis­play this past week­end as the third edi­tion of the Next Lev­el Per­for­mance (NLP) Com­bine con­clud­ed at the De­fence Force Train­ing Ground.

​Lead­ing the charge were sev­er­al stand­out per­form­ers who caught the eyes of in­ter­na­tion­al scouts. Josi­ah Ochoa, Seth Hadeed, Phillip Nel­son, Adriel Fau­re, Joshua Miguel, and Jalano Strak­er were among the top male prospects, while Kait­lyn Dar­went, Orielle Mar­tin, Ty’Kaiya Den­nis, Zye­sha Potts, Da­neelyah Sa­landy, and Scar­lett Cole stood out among the girls.

​The play­ers de­liv­ered ex­cep­tion­al per­for­mances over the three-day event (De­cem­ber 12–14), show­cas­ing the tech­ni­cal skill and ath­leti­cism that de­fine the twin-is­land re­pub­lic’s ris­ing stars. This year’s com­bine saw a sig­nif­i­cant turnout, fea­tur­ing some 50 boys and 30 girls rep­re­sent­ing every zone across T&T. The tal­ent pool was par­tic­u­lar­ly deep, bol­stered by the pres­ence of elite play­ers from the cur­rent Un­der-20 and U-17 na­tion­al teams.

​Vis­it­ing coach­es, in­clud­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Mur­ray State Col­lege, praised the high lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion. Be­yond the pitch, the in­ter­na­tion­al scouts were treat­ed to the lo­cal hos­pi­tal­i­ty and vi­brant at­mos­phere of Mac­queripe, with many al­ready com­mit­ting to re­turn for fu­ture edi­tions.

​The event was host­ed in part­ner­ship with the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) and Pro Se­ries. While the phys­i­cal com­bine has end­ed, the re­cruit­ment process is just be­gin­ning. Or­gan­is­ers are urg­ing all par­tic­i­pants—not just those who re­ceived im­me­di­ate in­ter­est—to stay ac­tive on the Next Lev­el Per­for­mance TT App, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from Garvin War­wick, the founder and CEO of Next Lev­el Per­for­mance TT.

​The re­lease added: "Our plat­form is con­nect­ed to a mas­sive dig­i­tal net­work in­clud­ing NCAA, NA­IA, and NJ­CAA coach­es. Even if an ath­lete wasn't scout­ed in per­son this week­end, their dig­i­tal pro­file en­sures they re­main vis­i­ble to pro­grams across North Amer­i­ca."

​As the dust set­tles in Mac­queripe, the fo­cus shifts to the NLP dig­i­tal plat­form, where the next gen­er­a­tion of T&T stars will look to turn lo­cal tal­ent in­to in­ter­na­tion­al schol­ar­ships.

Top prospects

Boys: Josi­ah Ochoa, Seth Hadeed, Phillip Nel­son, Adriel Fau­re, Joshua Miguel, Jalano Strak­er

Girls: Kait­lyn Dar­went, Orielle Mar­tin, Ty’Kaiya Den­nis, Zye­sha Potts, Da­neelyah Sa­landy, Scar­lett Cole