Under-23 footballers play Bahamas in Olympic qualifiers

TRINIDAD AND Tobago Under-23 football team will square off against Bahamas in the opening round of qualifiers, in the CONCACAF group, for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. The TT squad, under coach Stuart Charles-Fevrier, will meet the Bahamians in the two-match elimination series, on September 5 and 7, at the BFA National Stadium, Nassau. Twenty teams are competing in a two-leg series, which will last until October 12, while Honduras and the United States will receive byes to the second round, scheduled for mid-November. El Salvador and St Lucia have also progressed to the second phase without kicking a ball, as Puerto Rico, who were due to meet the Salvadoreans, withdrew from the competition while St Lucia’s expected opponents Antigua are under suspension from FIFA.

The ten first-round winners will meet in the second round series, with the seven top teams joining Mexico for the final qualification round, in Mexico, from February 2-12 2004. At the end of the final qualifiers, the group winner and runner-up will advance to the Olympics Games. Other First Round Fixtures — September 6 & 10: Nicaragua vs Panama; September 6 & 12: Grenada vs Cayman Islands; September 7 & 10: US Virgin Islands vs Canada; September 7 & 11: Dominica vs St Kitts; September 7 & 12: Suriname vs Guatemala; Guyana vs Barbados; Dominican Republic vs Haiti; Cuba vs Jamaica; September 13 & 15: Costa Rica vs Belize.