 So we're talking football now in the Sportsmax on 27 teams from North America and the Caribbean will begin their journey toward qualifying for the 2025 FIFA Men's Under 20 World Cup when they take part in first round qualifying action starting on Friday. The first phase of the qualifying will conclude on the 4th of March. The teams have been placed into six groups, three groups of five teams and three groups of four to be played in different countries. Let's have a look at the groupings. Group A, Cuba, Nicaragua, Belize, British Virgin Islands and Anguilla. Group B has El Salvador and Sion Barbados, Suriname, Guyana, Turks and Caicos Islands. The group C teams are Guatemala, Curaçao, Aruba, St. Martin, that's French, St. Martin and Barbados. The team can tell TNT who have made Under 20 World Cup and Dominica. Yeah, there's group D with Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica over in group E. We have Haiti, Puerto Rico, St. Quixote, Nevis and Cayman Islands and in group F, Jamaica, Bermuda, Grenada and Martinique. Now the top six teams from the tournament will join the six seeded teams, the United States, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic for this summer's Coca-Caf Under 20 Championship from which four teams will advance to the FIFA Men's Under 20 World Cup in Chile. Let's start our look ahead to the first round of qualifying by featuring group F, which will be played in St. Quixote and Nevis and specifically zoning in on Grenada who recently named their 21-man squad. Let's have a chat with their Under 20 coach, former Grenada international, Anthony Modest. Anthony, welcome to the Sportsman zone. It's a pleasure to have you, the former Pogmore United man. How are you doing these days? It's a pleasure to be here. I'm doing fine. I'm doing great. I'm looking forward to the tournament. Yeah, it's great to have you. Do you, Mr. Maker and Pogmore United? Definitely. Good job, guys. My second home. You never know, I might just be back as a Pogmore in the coaching area. Yeah, you never know indeed. Well, let's talk about the job that you have at the moment and that's the national Under 20 job, big period coming up the 24th, the 26th and the 28th as you try to make it to the ConquerCaf under 20 championship this summer. Talk to me about the preparation of this squad that you have. How long have you been preparing and how satisfied are you with where the team is at entering the tournament? We've been in preparation stage since last September. We focus a lot on the physical aspect of the football. We know the quality opponents we will be up against and we think being a big bunch and at the end being technically strong and having a good game plan. We can work on that. I know whenever you get to a group with Jamaica and Trinidad, I'm sorry, but we are very confident. The group of guys we have the local and we will be introducing five foreign base players to join the squad which will help enhance the squad and help strengthen the squad. We are very confident we can go all the way in this route. Yeah, talk to me about how you went about selecting those foreign base players. So you have a group of local base players. Were you looking for specifics in terms of areas that you felt you were weakened? If so, what were those areas and kind of walk us through what went into the selection process specifically with those foreign base players? Well, I must say the number of guys we got from overseas that were interested in participating are representing the country. It was a huge amount. When we looked at our local boys, we thought they were good enough. We looked at areas specifically, we thought we need to strengthen them. We have scouts on the other side that went to local players. Shari Joseph, our past player in the New York Revolution, he was one of the guys that identified players he think that could help because that player played on the end for a few years in the New York Revolution. Shari and I grew up together so I trust his word, the association trust his word because we know he has talent and he cannot identify talent. And that means that we are other people that went out scouting on our behalf. So when the pool came in, the pool of names that came in and we saw where we thought we need strengthening, we zoomed in on those guys and then got them over to us. Yeah, and based on the group that you're drawn in, I know you mentioned when you're in a group with Jamaica and Martinique, which team do you think will be your biggest opponent, your biggest hurdle? The three teams in the zone. The three teams in the zone. I think if you are drawn in a zone, it therefore means you have some quality, you have something in the football aspect. We know Jamaica is a powerhouse in the Caribbean when it comes to football, maybe at power levels. But we are not taking anyone lightly. We see everyone as a threat. Matter of fact, we see ourselves as a threat if we do not do what we're supposed to. But we see everyone as a threat. And on February 24, you have your opening match against Bermuda, any area that you and the boys need to work on, you know, tighten up just to ensure that you pick up those first winning points? Yeah, well, we have to get the game plan more settled in. We've been doing some work constantly game plan, and we have a few more work to do. I can't say much because I've been given out too much information, but we are working on our game plan. We look at our opponent. We think it's three points we can gain in the first match, and we are going all out. As we say, we normally say we take one game at a time, and right now we're just focusing on Bermuda, what we have to do, what we think we can do to get three points and what we think we can do to stop them from scoring. Yeah, Anthony, the Jamaica team, they came off recently a tour of Trinidad and Tobago where they played a couple of practice matches against the TT on the 20 side. They also played the on the 23 unit of one of the TTFA premiership sides there. How much experience does your squad have in terms of practice matches in the last six or seven months, if any at all? Yeah, it seems as if we've lost Anthony Modest, Lance and Mariah. Yeah, we hope that we can get him back soon. Hopefully it's just a temporary dropout for Anthony Modest because I'm keen to get from him his overall feeling on teenage football talent in the Caribbean because for the most part we feel in many different sports that at the teenage level, Caribbean athletes are comparable to some of the best athletes in the world, whatever the sport is. It's that transition from juniors to seniors that the gap begins to widen. So there is the general feeling that at the teenage level in many instances, not in all instances, but the Caribbean is better placed to challenge international level competition than when players get to their early 20s and so on. And I'm keen to hear Anthony on that because it is a view that we have held as sports enthusiasts for a long time. Yeah, I've heard that, Lance. And I think in instances, and more so for me, on an individual level, it can be true. I'm not convinced that generally it is true on a team level. And I think it also varies depending on the sport. So I think it could very well be true in cricket. Is it true in football? Yeah. I'm not sure. I think we have Anthony Moris back. Anthony, sorry that you dropped out just now, but I wanted to ask you the question about under 20 footballers in the Caribbean and their ability to compete with the best in Konkekaf and even beyond that internationally because we feel that it is that transition from junior to senior sport that the Caribbean misses out. In other words, a lot of our 21-22-year-olds are further behind the eight ball than they may have been internationally when they were 17 or 18 years old. What's your view on that? Yeah, I share the same sentiment. I think I've said in previous interviews, I think our young guys need to go out very early. We have the time at the school level, they are brilliant. And then there's this gap between the school level, the 20-23, and the senior. We need to find a way to get our players outside where they can play football on a regular basis. Every Sunday, they play a competitive game. They train in our professional outfit daily before a game. And once we get that kind of exposure, we will see the growth of our football. We will see that through potential because some of us in the Caribbean as young boys, we treat the game more as a sweat and we have to get the mindset, the professional mindset. And once we do that, we can go out. We definitely see the true potential. Yeah, because the point I wanted to make as well is that decades ago, I think Trinidad and Tobago had been the first team to qualify for the under-20 World Cup as a caracom country in 1991, with players like Dwight York and Angus Even and Geron Nixon, the Jamaicans did qualify some time after for the under-20 World Cup as well. But there hasn't been that growth. You would think that in 1991 if TNT could have done it, it would have inspired the kind of infrastructure and ambition from other caracom countries to achieve those levels. But there, as you're mentioning, Antony, there is this gap with professionalizing our 19, 20-year-olds to, with help needed from the authorities, I must say, because it's not just on the players themselves to advance themselves to that level. Definitely. We, as you will know, the caravan is full of talent, raw talent, but the talent needs to be enhanced. The different associations need to go out there and look for something for the guys, if I should say so. Find clubs, send them in one week terrain, send them on three weeks. Sometimes it may not just be on track, but just to go out there and experience the whole atmosphere of professionalism, proper professionalism. It will also help this guy to give them the boost, the boost to go forward, the encouragement, because we have a number, or we had a number of guys in the Caribbean that went out, the Latapide, the Yacht, the Ricardo Gardner, even the Bellino, and it should serve as incentives for our young ones, but for some reason we are not following up. And I think with the help of the local associations, with the push, the drive to the young ones, the young ones can go and make it. Yeah, Anthony. I also wanted to get an understanding of what your match preparations have been like heading into this tournament. We play a number of squad matches among ourselves, and the senior national team came out in training and we've been having games against the senior national team. So most of the games we played on local base games against the senior national team and against among ourselves. Yeah, does that concern you that you haven't been able to, as a unit, play matches against other national teams or national youth teams? Definitely. It's a concern because we wanted where they could go out of the environment, out of the comfort zone and experience something differently. It didn't happen. It's a concern, but it's something, it's water on the bridge more or less. We just have to try and motivate them and get them focused a good job from next week. Yeah, well, Anthony, we wish you all the very best in the tournament. You have some pretty experienced players coming from well-named clubs and universities. So there is some quality and experience there, and we wish you all the very best in the tournament. Take care. Thank you. Take care. All right, Anthony Modest, coach of Grenada's national on the 20 team, getting ready for the first phase of CONCACAF qualifying. They are trying to get to the CONCACAF championship this summer and ultimately the fee for under 20 World Cup. Let's go to a break. We'll go back with more after this.