SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — Jamaica Under-17s will go into battle against their fierce Caribbean rivals Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) today at the Estadio Francisco Morazan at 4:00 pm Jamaican time, knowing a win will put them on the cusp of a CONCACAF Championship play-off spot.

A victory for Jamaica and a drawn result between Guatemala and Cuba will send Jamaica into the play-off round regardless of the outcome between the United States of America (USA) and Honduras today.

The Americans lead the group with nine points ahead of Honduras on seven points, while Jamaica are on four. Guatemala are fourth on three points, just ahead of Cuba on two, with T&T pointless at the bottom.

Anything but a win for Jamaica could be disastrous, and head coach Andrew Edwards is cognisant of the fact.

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 play-offs, 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.

Edwards was largely happy with yesterday’s training session.

“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 tomorrow’s (today’s) game where we are expecting a very favourable result,” he added.