TTFA 5-man Delegation attends Copa America Teams Seminar
A Trinidad and Tobago Football Association five-man delegation led by Senior Men’s Team boss Angus Eve arrived in Miami today for the Conmebol three-day Copa America 2024 Teams Seminar and Official Draw at the James L Knight Entertainment and Convention Complex located in downtown Miami, part of the Hyatt Regency Miami.
Accompanying Eve is Senior Team manager Richard Piper, head of TTFA’s medical department and Senior Team Doctor Akash Dhanai, Director of Media and Communications Shaun Fuentes and Head of Security Major Basil Thompson.
Conmebol has invited officials from each fo the the Member Associations holding the respective National Team portfolio’s including the teams participating in the Play-In in Dallas in March. T&T faces Canada at the Toyota Stadium, Frisco on Sunday March 23rd.
All participating teams will have officials at the workshop including defending champions Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, USA, Mexico, Jamaica and Panama among others.
The first activity will be a Teams Seminar on Tuesday morning facilitated by Conmebol’s Director of Competitions and Operations Frederico Nantes and Concacaf’s Chief Football Officer Carlos Fernandez.
There will be seminars on Security, Medical Services and Anti-Doping, Marketing and Commercial, Broadcast/Digital Communications and Press Operations, Transportation and Accommodation, Team Services, Protocol, Ethics and Compliance, all facilitated by the head of the respective areas in Conmebol. There will also be a meeting of all head coaches on Wednesday.
This is the first Teams Workshop and Seminar for a major world competition that Trinidad and Tobago has appeared at since the 2006 World Cup Teams Workshop held in Dusseldorf, Germany in March, 2006.
On Thursday morning there will be bilateral meetings among the Member Associations of each of the countries involved followed by the official Dinner and Draw on Thursday night.
Part of the activities this week also includes a Legends match at the DRV PNK Stadium on Tuesday night which will involve some of the biggest past players from both confederations. The two teams will be led by head coaches, Jose Pekerman of Argentina and former Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago head coach Francisco Maturana.
Among the former stars set to play include Ronaldinho; Lucio; Dida of Brazil, Sergio Aguero; Maximiliano Rodriguez; Javier Zanetti and Gonzalo Higuain of Argentina, Mexico’s Jorge Campos and Luis Hernandez; Carlos Salcido, Uruguay’s Diego Forlán, Colombia’s Carlos Valderrama Chile’s duo of Ivan Zamorano and Marcelo Salas. Jamaican Olympic hero Usain Bolt will also appear.
The draw for the Group Stage of the CONMEBOL Copa América 2024™ can be seen live through the following channels from 8:30pm TT on Thursday.