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Today Jamaica’s young Reggae Boyz will face off against the young Soca Warriors of Trinidad and Tobago. Everything will be on the line for the Jamaicans, who still have a chance for to make it to the 2017 U17 world Cup. Trinidad who has lost all three of their games so far has almost no chance of making it through. The game is at 4PM Jamaican time today.

Should Jamaica defeat Trinidad and Cuba and Guatemala draw their match, Jamaica would be guaranteed a CONCACAF Championship playoff spot.

Despite Trinidad and Tobago’s poor run in which they lost all three games – 1-4 to Guatemala and 0-2 to both USA and Honduras, Edwards expects a real fight on his hand.

“A victory with favourable results could actually qualify us for the playoffs, so we want to do that. But we know it will be difficult because the Jamaica/Trinidad rivalry is the biggest in Caribbean football,” Edwards noted.

He continued, “Before the tournament started, the Trinidad coach, a friend of mine, pointed out to me that Jamaica has never beaten Trinidad at this level. After losing to Honduras, he said he has played his three toughest matches to date and he is certain that he will be going home with six points.”

“I am pretty certain that they are coming all guns blazing to get some points on the board and Jamaica is the team they want it from. So we have to stand up strongly and prevent that from happening,” said Edwards.

The young Reggae Boyz had a training session yesterday morning at the Rancho Tara facility and once again defender Ajeanie Talbott had to sit out the greater part of the session after picking up a knock during one of the drills. Whether he will start the game or not is left to be seen.

Creative midfielder Alex Marshall had a stiff neck, but that was taken care of by physiotherapist Garone Brown during training.

“The training session went really good for us. We did some work on the attacking options because we really need to score some goals. So we worked from midfield build up through to finishing. We also did some dead ball situations, corners and penalties. But all in all, I think it went well, so we are very happy with that,” Edwards pointed out.

“The energy from the boys and the enthusiasm and excitement seen from them look really good and promising. So we are buoyed by that and we are looking forward to today’s game where we are expecting a very favourable result,” he added.