Local Football

Barney’s bible: ‘The more games you play, the better you get’ fallacy leaves T&T players underdeveloped

Youth development in Trinidad, simply put, consists of tournaments and competitions. The Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL), Youth Pro League (YPL), Republic Bank Youth League, Next Level U-19 Tournament and Commissioner’s Cup are the main players in this arena.  I will use the SSFL as the starting point of the …

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Barney’s bible: Does T&T player development follow best practices? Are our youth competitions helping or hurting?

A question on The Burdie and Barney podcast during our discussion with former England Premier League and 2006 World Cup goalkeeper Shaka Hislop lingered long after that episode was over:  Have we been developing players? Or were we just blessed with talented players previously and, now, not so much?  At …

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Human trafficking? Or just a horrible trial? Lamb and McFee respond to police commissioner’s claims

In October 2020, former Trinidad and Tobago national youth team footballers Isaiah ‘Mal’ Garcia and Jaheim McFee boarded a plane at the Piarco International Airport with the intention of becoming professional players in the Egypt First Division. Six months later, both young men are rooming with relatives in London and …

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‘Everybody In’: TTFA launches coaching webinars on science of coaching, player development, and parental involvement

The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) will hold a series of coaching webinars, beginning on 10 April 2021, under the banner of ‘Everybody In’, which will be open to all coaches from Trinidad and Tobago. The concept, according to the TTFA release, is part of its ‘ongoing efforts to …

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Dear Editor: Malls packed, beaches crowded, new movies in cinema; yet they pick on sports

“[…] Last Saturday, the malls were jam-packed with juveniles and police had to be called in to disperse the crowd. Beaches remain open and quite obviously will be crowded this weekend, just as they were reported to be last weekend, while there are sure to be new movies released in the cinema.  …

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Normalisation committee announces fourth TTFA appointment, 11 days after he started working!

Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) interim general secretary Amiel Mohammed announced Fifa’s fourth appointment on its normalisation committee today: Massy Finance and Republic Bank director Trevor Nicholas Gomez. Remarkably, Gomez was actually appointed by Fifa on 15 March 2021 and immediately became an active member of the team. However, …

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NFCTT disputes Hadad’s claim that coaches ‘paid up’; Corneal, Shabazz discuss Fenwick fracas

National Football Coaches of Trinidad and Tobago (NFCTT) interim president Jefferson George has denied Fifa-appointed normalisation committee chairman Robert Hadad’s apparent claim that any coaches were paid off under his watch. Hadad’s comments were supposedly made in a press conference on 18 March and subsequently published in the Trinidad Newsday …

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