Latapy seeks additional players for Under-15 squad

Latapy invited additional home-based players, coming from the various local zones, to yesterday’s training session at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva. The former national men’s team captain and coach had a final look at players who have been knocking on the door or narrowly missed out on making the cut, prior to the team’s recent participation at the Cayman Airways Invitational Youth Under-15 Cup.

“What we’ve done is invited some players into the sessions and also called back in a few of the boys who were previously involved as we try to ensure we have a proper look and a thorough assessment of as much as the players as possible before making the selection for the CONCACAF tournament in August,” Latapy said.

“There’s no harm in doing this, even though it’s not an open trial as such, because we’ve already gone through that process of screening the players from the different zones earlier this year.

We are working every week and we can afford to make use of every opportunity we have when it comes to assessing players but we are doing it in an organised manner so it’s not a situation where players can just show up to a training session. The players must be invited by the national team coaching staff at this level,” added the “Little Magician”.

Latapy said he was pleased with the programmes being implemented by the TT FA (Trinidad and Tobago Football Association) in an attempt to have the widest and best possible pool of players at youth level.

“This is the future and we can only improve our players with proper development programmes and by doing it consistently.

It’s the only way we are going give ourselves a fair chance of competing with the best in the region and by extension the world. We have the Under-17 team also preparing for the next Under-20 qualification as currently you can see the Under-20 World Cup taking place in South Korea and those are the competitions we want to be involved in,” Latapy added. “We must strive to qualify for the next Under-20 and Under-17 World Cups.”