No Christmas for TT footballers

The games are slated for December 27 and December 30 and the TT team will return home on December 31 to continue its build up to the two CONCACAF Gold Cup qualifying playoff matches against Suriname on January 4 and Haiti on January 8 at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva.

Trinidad and Tobago’s newly installed head coach Tom Saintfiet said that these two games have come at an ideal time as he prepares the team for the two CONCACAF Gold Cup qualifiers.

“First of all I am very happy that the Football Association has been able to arrange these two friendly matches at such short notice because these will be important preparation games for us before the important Gold Cup qualifiers in January,” Saintfiet told TT FA Media.

Saintfiet is on the hot seat after replacing Stephen Hart at the helm of the national team. And David John-Williams, president of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TT FA), has already given the 43-year-old Belgian to kickstart this country’s World Cup campaign or face an early exit.

These two matches vs Nicaragua will be used by Saintfiet to quickly get his ideas across to the players at his disposal.

“It also helps me as coach to analyse the players we will select and as well as to implement and try out possible strategies which we will want to use in our matches to follow. It will also help us in the development of the team for the future.

“I hope we can have the best possible squad for the matches.

We are still not sure about the availability of some of the European- based players and whether they will be released by their clubs because these two games and also the ones in January are not within the FIFA dates but I promise you that the players who will be selected from both foreign and local teams will form a strong squad to give us decent results in Nicaragua and to help us prepare for the important matches in January,” Saintfiet stated.

Saintfiet will announce the squad for both games in due course once the availability of the players have been confirmed.

Nicaragua and TT played to a 0-0 draw in a friendly at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on October 13, 2015 In March, 2016, Nicaragua defeated Panama 1-0 in a friendly in Managua and also drew 1-1 with El Salvador in another friendly that same month. They lost 1-0 to Honduras in a friendly in San Pedro Sula in August and drew 0-0 with St Kitts/Nevis in August.

Back in December of 2015, they recorded 1-0 and 5-0 victories over Cuba at home before suffering a narrow 1-0 loss away to Costa Rica.