T&T men to face Russia in June 9 friendly

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s se­nior men’s na­tion­al foot­ball team will face Rus­sia in an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly on June 9 at the Kalin­ingrad Sta­di­um on Ok­tyabrsky Is­land, Kalin­ingrad, Rus­sia, a venue which host­ed four match­es dur­ing the 2018 FI­FA World Cup.

The fix­ture forms part of the team’s prepa­ra­tions for the up­com­ing Con­ca­caf Na­tions League cam­paign in Sep­tem­ber and is one of sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies be­ing arranged as head coach (in­ter­im) Derek King con­tin­ues shap­ing the na­tion­al squad.

The match presents an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant test for T&T against ex­pe­ri­enced op­po­si­tion and of­fers the play­ers a valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty to gain ex­po­sure in a de­mand­ing in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment, and it comes fol­low­ing T&T’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the FI­FA Se­ries dur­ing the last in­ter­na­tion­al, in which T&T suf­fered de­feats against Venezuela 4-1 on March 27 and Gabon 3-2 on penal­ty kicks af­ter a 2-2 draw.

Look­ing ahead to the match, T&T in­ter­im head coach Derek King wel­comed the fix­ture as a key com­po­nent in the team’s on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment.

“This is a very good game for us at this stage of our prepa­ra­tion,” King told T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Me­dia on Mon­day.

“As we con­tin­ue to build and de­vel­op our squad ahead of the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League in Sep­tem­ber, match­es of this lev­el pro­vide the kind of com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment our play­ers need to grow, both in­di­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly.”

King al­so re­vealed that ad­di­tion­al in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies are in the pipeline as the team ramps up its prepa­ra­tions in the months ahead.

“As head coach of the team, I wel­come this up­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al fix­ture against Rus­sia as an im­por­tant step in the team’s on­go­ing de­vel­op­ment. We al­so have a cou­ple of oth­er friend­ly games lined up, which will fur­ther sup­port our prepa­ra­tion,” he added.

King point­ed to the match as an­oth­er im­por­tant step in strength­en­ing the team’s iden­ti­ty and sharp­en­ing the com­pet­i­tive edge need­ed for Na­tions League foot­ball.

“Our fo­cus is on im­prov­ing our struc­ture, strength­en­ing our iden­ti­ty, and en­sur­ing that we are com­pet­i­tive at every lev­el. This match al­lows us to test our­selves against qual­i­ty op­po­si­tion while con­tin­u­ing to build the chem­istry and dis­ci­pline re­quired for Na­tions League foot­ball,” King stat­ed.

The en­counter will al­so car­ry spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for Spar­tak Moscow’s Levi Gar­cia, who has made a name for him­self pro­fes­sion­al­ly in Rus­sia, adding an­oth­er com­pelling sto­ry­line to the fix­ture.

“Rus­sia is a place where Levi has es­tab­lished him­self pro­fes­sion­al­ly, and it will be a proud and spe­cial mo­ment for him to rep­re­sent his coun­try there,” King not­ed. “It’s al­ways im­por­tant when our play­ers can con­nect their club ex­pe­ri­ences with the na­tion­al team, and I know he will em­brace that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

The June 9 clash will see T&T, win­less in six match­es since a 3-0 win over Bermu­da, ap­pear at one of Eu­rope’s icon­ic mod­ern foot­ball venues, with Kalin­ingrad Sta­di­um pro­vid­ing a fit­ting stage for what promis­es to be a high-qual­i­ty in­ter­na­tion­al con­test as T&T con­tin­ue their build-up to­ward cru­cial com­pet­i­tive ac­tion lat­er this year.

Fur­ther de­tails re­gard­ing squad an­nounce­ments and ad­di­tion­al friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­als will be com­mu­ni­cat­ed in due course.