Cooper, Latchoo get enhanced portfolios with T&T national youth teams

Trinidad and Tobago Men’s National Under-17 Team head coach Shawn Cooper will also serve as head coach of the Boys’ National Under-15 Team for next month’s Concacaf Boys U-15 Championship in Dominican Republic.

The two-island republic are grouped with Costa Rica, Honduras and Puerto Rico for the upcoming competition, which kicks off on 6 August at the Felix Sanchez Stadium. The National Under-15s will play Honduras on 6 August, Costa Rica on 7 August and Puerto Rico on 8 August.

Cooper’s appointment is for the duration of the U-15 tournament, which runs until 13 August 2023—and he leads a technical staff that includes assistant coaches Densill Theobald, Yohance Marshall and Gilbert Bateau.

Theobald and Bateau have been largely responsible for the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association’s High Performance U-15 Boys Programme since May 2022.

TTFA technical director Anton Corneal is head of the entire High Performance Programme.

However, according to a TTFA media release, Cooper will now lend his experience to the coaching set-up.

Cooper, who is also head coach of Presentation College (San Fernando), will continue to serve as a High Performance Programme coach at the conclusion of the Concacaf tournament with “the intention of bridging both the U-15 and U-17 Programmes”.

“Cooper, who was appointed as National Men’s U-17 head coach for the 2023 Concacaf Championship in February 2023, will continue to serve in the role as head coach of the Men’s U-17 Programme for the next Concacaf Championship qualification cycle,” stated the release.

“Under his oversight, selected players from the current [Boys] U-15 High Performance Programme will graduate to the U-17 National Programme in January 2024.”

Theobald, Marshall and Bateau will continue their duties as High Performance Programme coaches for the Boys Under-13 and Boys Under-15 Teams for the remainder of 2023.

On the Girls side of the High Performance Programme, Marlon Charles serves as head coach for the upcoming Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Girls U-14 Challenge Series, which will be held in Antigua from 18 to 27 August 2023.

And TTFA Head of Coach Education and Youth Football Director Rajesh Latchoo heads the technical staff of the Women’s National Under-17 Team, which is currently preparing for the Concacaf U-17 Women’s Championship qualifiers.

Latchoo is assisted by former Women Soca Warriors defender Ayana Russell.

The Under-17 Women are grouped with El Salvador, Curaçao, Cayman Islands, and Martinique in the qualifying rounds, which run from 26 August – 3 September 2023.

Only the group winner will advance to the 2023 Concacaf Women’s U-17 Championship. Mexico and the United States, as the two top seeds, do not have to qualify for the Championship.

The core of the Trinidad and Tobago Under-17 Women’s team have trained with the High Performance Programme since May 2022 while almost half of Latchoo’s current provisional squad competed in the qualifying stage of the Concacaf Women’s U-20 Championship last April.

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