HEAD coach of the national women’s senior football team Kenwyne Jones described the Concacaf Women’s Championship draw as favourable after his charges were grouped with Canada, Costa Rica and Panama.
The teams competing at the tournament in Monterrey, Mexico from July 4-18 will be vying for a spot at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
The draw for the Concacaf tournament was held, on Tuesday.
In the Concacaf Women’s Championships, TT will play Canada in Group B on July 5, followed by matches against Costa Rica on July 8 and Panama on July 11.
Group A will feature the US, Mexico, Jamaica and Haiti.
The top two teams in each of the two groups will advance to the World Cup. The third-placed teams from each group will qualify for the inter-confederation playoffs.
Jones, speaking to journalists on Zoom on Thursday, said, “I think at the end of it we were kind of pleased with the fellow participants in our group.
We know that stepping up to this Concacaf level of qualification all opponents are going to be tough matches, but you kind of have biases of who you would rather face and I think in the end we did probably get a favourable draw.
“At the same time, we are going to buckle down and prepare for each match of that group stage.”
Jones will be sticking with the core of players that have helped TT reach this stage of the FIFA World Cup qualification campaign.
“I think the pool of players was already settled from inception, from the time that I got there,” Jones said.
“Whether or not players were available at the times that we wanted them to be part of the camps and the qualification games earlier on (and) in the last rounds was another story. We are going to have a few other players who are part of the pool that we are going to see over the next two months or so before the tournament.
Hopefully, that would further add to the level of the squad and the competitiveness and then give us a good headache going into the tournament.”
Practice matches will be a vital part of TT’s preparations, said Jones. “Hopefully with collaboration with the federation (TT Football Association) we will be able to have a couple matches…I know locally once we have a squad together we will have a few training matches and maybe a couple matches before we go off to Mexico.”
Jones said it would be ideal if his squad could acclimatize to the conditions before their opening match as they would be playing at an altitude in Monterrey.
Monterrey is 540m above sea level which can affect the breathing of players.
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