Dantaye Gilbert debuts for PSV Eindhoven U-21s

Former San Juan Jabloteh and Presentation College (San Fernando) midfielder Dantaye Gilbert made his debut for PSV Eindhoven’s under-21 team on Monday, as the Dutch club got a comfortable 3-1 win over Nottingham Forest’s under-21 team in their Premier League International Cup match at the Impact Arena Stadium in Alfreton, England.

The 18-year-old Gilbert, who was officially announced as a PSV player on September 4, came on as a substitute on the hour mark for Dutch under-16 player Joel van den Berg. PSV, the reigning champs of the international cup, got their goals from Jesper Uneken, Mohamed Nassoh and Renzo Tytens.

PSV are in group A of the 24-team tournament alongside Premier League Two clubs Forest, Blackburn Rovers, Leeds United and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Hertha Berlin, Nice and Sparta Praha are also in group A. In the tournament’s group stage, the Premier League teams do not face each other, while the non-Premier League teams also don’t meet each other. Each team plays four group matches.

PSV’s next match in the tournament will be versus Wolves at the Aggborough Stadium in Kidderminster, England on October 16, while they will round off the group stage with matches versus Blackburn and Leeds.

The group phase will end in January 2024, with the top two teams from the three groups advancing to the quarter-finals, as well as the two best third-placed teams.

Premier League clubs such as Brighton, Chelsea and Liverpool are represented in the youth tournament, along with French Ligue One’s Olympique Lyonnais and Spanish La Liga’s Athletic Bilbao.

The tournament was introduced in the 2014/15 season, with Manchester City’s youth team winning the inaugural edition. Current Premier League players such as Kelechi Iheanacho, Victor Lindelof and Dominic Solanke turned out in the tournament’s first edition.

Upon signing with PSV, Gilbert expressed a desire to make it through the youth ranks and into the first team. He has loftier ambitions as well.

“My biggest dream in football is to win as many trophies as I can. I want to start with the Dutch League, Champions League and personally, I want to win Ballon D’ors and Player of the Year,” the TT youth international said. “I want to win everything it has to win honestly.”