By Dean “The Sportsman” Greenaway
BVI home based U-17 Men’s Football team
Both Captain Latriel Williams and Christian Vanterpool know what they will be facing when the BVIs square off against St. Maarten at 6 p.m. on Friday, in the CONCACAF U-17 Men Qualifiers for the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Costa Rica.
BVI will face Trinidad and Tobago at 6 p.m. on Sunday, hosts Costa Rica at 9 p.m. on Tuesday and Guyana at 6 p.m. on Feb 16.
“I’m looking forward to this competition for a good result, due to us not being a well-known country, so basically going in as underdogs,” Williams said. “To come out successful will be a good thing for the country and the national team.”
Vanterpool said he’s looking for the team to be competitive. “We know we’re the underdogs in our group as Latriel said, so we’re looking to compete,” he said. “I think it will be a good experience for the national team to see how we compete.”
BVI Football Association Technical Director Paul Decle said that the FIFA U-17 World Cup will be held annually for the next five years. For the players identified from the grassroots level, through the U1-5s elite program, he said this is an opportunity to represent at the top level regionally and give a gauge of where they are developmentally.
“We look at this as an opportunity to expose our players to top level competition and as a technical staff, to be able to look at what are the takeaways we can look at for the younger players coming up and how we can improve on our national teams moving forward,” he said.
Clinton “Tinnie” Percival who coached the U-20s last year and is in his first stint coaching the U-17s, said the team has been together for a while and they’re looking at continuity. “We have been working with the guys getting them in a good frame of mind to compete, to make sure what we have taught them, they can execute it on the field of play and just compete,” he said. “We have some ways to go but at the end of the day, we have a lot of hope that they can perform well enough to make the country proud.”
Percival said when the team goes on the field, it’s rectangular, same size, same ball and 11 players on each side. “For me, FIFA tends to base teams on your rankings high or low, but on the day, the team that wants it the most, the team that has been preparing well enough and you compete, anything can happen on that day,” he said. “We’ve proven it already (with the U-20s) that we can go up against the so-called bigger teams, but what you give out on the day makes the difference.”
He added: “Our expectations are high to compete and whoever we come up against, to make sure they have to play to beat us and that is what we are preparing for. Saying we’re going to win two, we’re going to win three, is not being realistic to me. It’s about going out there competing and as long as we compete, that’s the most important thing for us. We can measure ourselves going forward as long as we compete and see where we are.”
The team is comprised of players of mixed ages Percival said, to ensure continuity and in the next few years some players will still be on the team. “For us, it’s about a good structure, the players can mesh together and every year we don’t have to change a complete team,” he said. “We’re making sure we have young players coming through, so after this tournament, we’ll have players who’ll still be able to play with us.”
The team is comprised of players: Toby Whiteside, Qu’yl Billingy, Robert Penman, Eljay Scatliffe, Latriel Williams, Marc Tan, Kyle Farrington, Michel-Anson Findlay, Lashawn Gibbs, Blake Kirk, Malik Fenton, Luca Stuttard, Roman Nibbs, Zevieh Abrahams, D’Andre Mcsheen, Christian Vanterpool, Sam Sharma, Akeem Paddy, Dashiell Dickens, Theo Coombs, Morris Mark III. Staff: Head Coach, Clinton “Tinnie” Percival, Morris Mark Jr., Goalkeeper Coach, Paul Delce, Technical Director, Jermaine May, Kitman/Trainer, Levy James, Physio, Nigel Williams, Manager.
