Women's team want to bring smiles back to Trinidad and Tobago football

HEAD coach of the Trinidad and Tobago's women’s senior football team James Thomas said the responsibility of bringing smiles back to TT football fans by delivering quality performances is one they take seriously.

Thomas, hired in April, has three months to prepare the national team for the 2022 Concacaf Women’s Championship qualifiers which kick off in November.

TT were drawn in Group F alongside Guyana, Nicaragua, Dominica and Turks and Caicos Islands. Matches will be played in November 2021 and April 2022.

Thirty teams were drawn into six groups of five. Each team will play two home and two away matches in a single round-robin format. The six group winners will advance to the final Concacaf tournament.

The Concacaf tournament will serve as the qualifiers for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“Success is so important and it’s something that again as I said every day we are fighting for…players really want it and so do the staff and everybody around that are supporting us,” Thomas told journalists on Sunday during a Zoom session.

TT football reached one of its lowest points in history earlier this year when the TT men’s football senior team were knocked out in the first round of the FIFA 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

In June, TT drew 0-0 with Bahamas and were eliminated. Bahamas at the time were ranked 201st in the world.

Thomas said the challenge ahead is one they will embrace. “I think it is absolutely vital to put a smile on the faces of the fans because as you said there has been kind of a rough time recently. I think it is important that we now are the ones that need to carry that burden because it is, but it is a good burden to have because it gives us hopefully some support.”

Thomas, who is aware that we are still in a pandemic, said it will be exciting to play at home in front of fans.

“It will be fantastic if we are at the point sometime soon depending on regulations that we could play in front of our fans because that is something that will be fantastic…just to give the fans something to be proud of.

“It is a huge responsibility that we carry everyday and every decision that I make and everything that I do is about that, is about making this team as successful as we possibly can.”

Thomas, who is from Wales, believes TT have been placed in a favourable group.

“It is a pleasing draw. There are certainly a couple teams in there that would have made the group slighter tougher I suppose, but at the end of the day international football is tough. To win a game in international football you need to be fully on our game. I am happy with the draw, but to be honest the thing I am the happiest about is that the draw is now done and we now have a focal point in terms of these four teams that we have to create the game plan to beat each (one) accordingly.”

Thomas is targeting two camps ahead of the qualifiers with the first one starting in September and another in October.