PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Trinidad and Tobago have named a weakened 18-man squad for next Wednesday’s friendly international against Chile.
While head coach Russell Latapy has included nine players who were members of the country’s failed World Cup campaign last year, he has had to overlook key members from top Pro League clubs San Juan Jabloteh who are participating in the CFU Club Championship next week.
It means that Joe Public’s Kerry Baptiste, Trent Noel, Marvin Phillip, Radanfah Abu Bakr and Makan Hislop along with San Juan Jabloteh’s Robert Primus and Jason Marcano will miss out on the trip to the Estadio Tierra de Campeones.
“It’s a little bit of a difficult situation because we will not have some of the players from the two clubs,” Latapy said.
“The overseas-based players are obviously not available at this time but I prefer to see it as a good opportunity for some of the newer talents, the upcoming ones to stake a claim for themselves.
“Right now we are in a rebuilding stage and we definitely want to be playing the likes of Chile which is a World Cup team and it’s an ideal chance for us to match up against a team like theirs as we prepare for our qualification towards the World Cup in 2014.”
The side, however, should find strength in the experience of the nine players from last year’s campaign with Densill Theobald, Keon Daniel, Keston Williams, Kern Cupid, Hughton Hector, Devon Jorsling, Jan-Michael Williams, Aklie Edwards and Clyde Leon in the line-up.
