PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Despite Trinidad and Tobago’s Digicel Caribbean Cup failure, the T&T Football Federation’s technical adviser Keith Look Loy believes the country still made good progress during the year.
The Soca Warriors, the men’s senior national side, struggled in the DCC Finals in Martinique, losing their first two group games to miss out on the semi-finals and a place in next year’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.
“I think on a different front there was a fair amount of progress made,” Look Loy said.
“And I’m referring here to women’s football where for the first time we established a coherent women’s program which deals with a pool of age group players from Under-13 and Under-15 come right up which is now a development path for players to move into various national teams.”
T&T were impressive in the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup which they hosted, finishing third in Group A after winning one of their three games in the preliminary round stages.
They beat Chile 2-1 in their opening fixture but lost 2-1 to Nigeria and 1-0 to eventual semi-finalists Korea DPR in spirited performances.
“We … made significant strides in on field performance where we won our first game at any World Cup level against Chile in the opening game of the Women’s World Cup,” Look Loy pointed out.
“And we had the senior women’s team finishing second in the Central American and Caribbean Games to a Conmebol team in Venezuela. This again is something that has never happened before.”
Despite Look Loy’s assessment, T&T football was hit hard by the Soca Warriors’ failure.
They went down 2-1 to Cuba in their opening game of the DCC Finals before losing 1-0 to Grenada, to bow out of contention.
The failed campaigned has led to speculation that national coach Russell Latapy will be axed shortly and replaced by an international figure.