🇹🇹 Kenwyne Jones pushing for World Cup return in new capacity as Trinidad and Tobago women start qualification
The former forward says it's not about him but is making a statement with his presence.
Kenwyne Jones can say something few Trinbagonians can say: He’s played at the World Cup.
The former forward was the youngest player on the 2006 World Cup roster. His club career spanned nearly a decade the Premier League and also included stops in the UAE and the U.S.
Now, he wants to use those experiences to help more of his compatriots get to the sport’s biggest stage.
Jones currently is the head coach of the Trinidad and Tobago women’s national team, which opens World Cup qualification Thursday against Nicaragua and plays Dominica on Sunday. After two more games in April, the winner of the group moves into this summer’s Concacaf W Championship where they will fight for a spot at the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
It’s not easy to qualify from Concacaf. While the region is getting another guaranteed spot to take its total to four for Australia-New Zealand, history indicates two spots will be reserved for the U.S. and Canada with fierce competition for the remaining two slots - though there also are two playoff places. Yet, Jones still feels the World Cup should be Trinidad and Tobago’s aim.
“Of course it is the goal. The goal is for me to be able to help this group to qualify for the World Cup,” Jones told me last week. “I want them to have that moment, that feeling, because I've gone through that, and I want that for them.”
More than simply a former player beloved on the islands, Jones holds a UEFA A license and previously worked as an assistant coach for current Anguilla manager Stern John with the U-17 T&T men’s national team.
Yet, the transition from playing to coaching was hardly part of Jones’ master plans for life after soccer.
Now 37, Jones started working on his coaching badges while playing at Cardiff. There he had a coach who was an educator with the Wales FA and encouraged him to join the program.
“I just decided to do it to keep myself busy,” Jones said, laughing. “I was like, ‘You never know what can happen in the future.’ But I think coaching has always been in me because I was always able to help people around me while I was playing.”
Jones said he and his teammates who were part of Trinidad and Tobago’s golden generation that made the 2006 World Cup spent time analyzing, thinking and breaking down the game, idolizing some of the legendary managers in the heyday of Serie A in the 1990s before the Premier League became the world’s top league.
Those conversations have led others to take the same path, with Jones’ former club and country teammate Carlos Edwards named as an assistant for the Women Warriors ahead of the March matches.
That puts two T&T legends in front of the team, but for Jones it’s not remarkable that he and his contemporaries want to push the game forward.
“It's nothing that is, in my opinion, headline grabbing or anything like that. I just love this sport, I love my country, and I want to be able to serve and usher in a change of ideals, I would say, when it comes to our national teams,” Jones said.
While he’s taking pains to make sure the team’s story isn’t just about him, Jones is making a statement with his presence leading the senior women’s squad.
It’s been a tumultuous time for all levels of soccer in Trinidad and Tobago, with the FA currently run by a normalization committee after FIFA suspended the FA for debts mere months after a new federation board was elected.
Strict pandemic regulations have made it difficult for teams to train or play friendly matches even as Caribbean rivals return to play.
But even before Covid-19, mismanagement of the senior women’s national team long has plagued Trinidad and Tobago, most notably in 2014 when then-coach Randy Waldrum took to Twitter to ask for food assistance ahead of World Cup qualification.
Even then, the team finished fourth that cycle, falling to Ecuador in the intercontinental playoff and missing out on Canada 2015.
With his ability use his reputation to push leaders to get on the same page, Jones is making sure the Trinidad and Tobago women are being taken seriously.
“For me, football is football. That could mean coaching women or coaching men,” he said. “I do believe that in order to grow something big or make changes, there are people who have to walk the pathway before and help break barriers, lay foundations, that type of stuff.
“For Trinidad and Tobago, there’s a perfect opportunity for the lives of so many young women to change because we know there’s a boom in women’s football in our region.
“The opportunity to forge careers in something they truly love is there, it’s right and if they’re not guided or given the right tools to help them achieve that kind of success for themselves, I think we’ll be failing the game of football.”
There’s reason to believe opposing teams will need to take Trinidad and Tobago’s squad seriously on the field as well. “We have some bright talents,”
Jones says, with Greece-based forward Raenah Campbell, León defender Victoria Swift, Houston Dash training camp invitee Liana Hinds and a number of U.S.-based players bolstering the domestic-based group that includes the Forbes sisters Karyn and Kimika and Rhea Belgrave.
No matter what this group achieves, though, whether it reaches Jones’ goal and qualifies for the 2023 World Cup or falls short of the next round, the coach hopes it will be looked back upon as the one that started the push for the Trinidad and Tobago women’s national team to become a power in the region.
“Women’s football is not going anywhere,” Jones said. “It’s here to stay, and it’s going to get bigger, so being able to help the association have a broader view of women’s football and - for want of a better term - take it seriously, invest in it and throw all the resources that can possibly be thrown at it, equal to the men’s game, is really important.”