A group of play­ers that will bring back the sup­port for women’s foot­ball await fans on Fri­day (Feb­ru­ary 21) when the qual­i­fiers for the Con­ca­caf Women’s Cham­pi­onships be­gin with a clash against Bermu­da in Group E at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va.

Coach Der­nelle Mas­call em­braced a num­ber of play­ers who per­formed with cred­it at the re­cent Un­der-17 Cham­pi­onships at the same venue to en­sure that the team qual­i­fied for the sec­ond round. Pro­lif­ic strik­ers Orielle Mar­tin and Rashe­da Archer, de­fend­er Soleil St. Hill, and mid­field­er Che­ri­na Steele have been re­cruit­ed in­to the Un­der-20 ros­ter that will face three teams, in­clu­sive of Do­mini­ca and Con­ca­caf gi­ants Cana­da, for the right to earn a qual­i­fy­ing berth for the Con­ca­caf Women’s Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onships lat­er this year.

Quizzed on the qual­i­ty of her team, Mas­call said, “They are a bunch that the fans would love to see play. We could com­pare them to the era when we had Ah­keela Mol­lon, Ken­nya ‘YaYa’ Cord­ner, and Tasha St. Louis, and they, when we ac­tu­al­ly had the fans ral­ly­ing be­hind women’s foot­ball. I think they can bring that back for us.”

Mas­call was not tak­ing any team for grant­ed, de­spite a his­to­ry that saw the So­ca Princess­es de­stroy teams such as Bermu­da and Do­mini­ca on the field, pre­fer­ring rather to take each game on its mer­it. “Gone are the days when we would look past teams, so we will be tak­ing it one game at a time. So we’re not go­ing to jump ahead and think Cana­da is the on­ly re­al chal­lenge. We’re go­ing to take every game at a time. I think we need to make sure the girls stay fo­cused and we do what we need to do each game, and we re­cov­er, and then we go again for the oth­er game.”

Mas­call, a for­mer na­tion­al play­er who was one of two coach­es for the un­der-17 Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­onships re­cent­ly along with Ayan­na Rus­sell, be­gan prepa­ra­tion last week, Feb­ru­ary 14. She told the me­dia jok­ing­ly that al­though it is crunch time for her and her girls, the on­ly good thing is that they can warm up to the sweet sound of so­ca mu­sic dur­ing this Car­ni­val sea­son.

The So­ca Princess­es match to­mor­row (Fri­day) will be pre­ced­ed by an­oth­er be­tween Cana­da and Do­mini­ca at 5 pm. T&T will again take the field on Sun­day against the Do­mini­cans at 7 pm and then Cana­da on Tues­day at the Cou­va venue.

Apart from Group E, T&T will al­so be host to Group F in­volv­ing Cos­ta Ri­ca, Guatemala, the Cay­man Is­lands, and Aru­ba to be con­test­ed at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.

The ac­tion be­gins this evening with Guatemala tak­ing on the Cay­man Is­lands at the Ato Boldon from 5 pm, while Cos­ta Ri­ca and Aru­ba will tan­gle in the oth­er match at 7 pm.

The oth­er groups will fea­ture Group A (Haiti, Guyana, Be­lize, An­tigua & Bar­bu­da); Group B (Puer­to Ri­co, El Sal­vador, Hon­duras, US Vir­gin Is­lands); Group C (Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Pana­ma, Cu­ba, Bonaire); and Group D (Ja­maica, Nicaragua, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vin­cent & the Grenadines).

The Cham­pi­onship Stage will in­clude eight CON­CA­CAF mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions and be played in a to-be-con­firmed cen­tralised venue in May.

Fri­day's match­es

GROUP F

Guatemala vs Cay­man Is­lands, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, 5 pm

Cos­ta Ri­ca vs Aru­ba, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, 7 pm

T&T 21-mem­ber U-20 women’s team:

Goal­keep­ers:

Zaira Aimey, Zofia Richards Ken­isha Tay­lor

De­fend­ers:

Hac­k­eemar Goodridge, Anas­ta­sia O’Brien, Soleil St Hill, Mikaela Year­wood, Ca­lyp­so Ay­oung, J’Eleisha Alex­an­erder, Ja­da Gra­ham.

Mid­field­ers:

Che­ri­na Steele, Sheneil Find­ley, Orielle Mar­tin, Ty’Kaiya Den­nis, Ar­i­ana Bor­neo, Gabriel Ramdeen

For­wards:

Na­tal­ie Pen­nis­ton-John, Rashe­da Archer, Mari­ah Williams, Sumayah Brown, Madi­son Camp­bell