Thiago Cunha goes through the technical motions with Nikki Ebanks.

By Beverly Melbourne

The Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA) National Under-17 Girls are back to the basics as they step up their preparations for the FIFA World Cup Qualifying / CFU Under-17 Girls preliminary round games in Haiti in November this year.

The girls will participate in Group A which consists of Haiti, British Virgin Islands, The Cayman Islands and The Bahamas.

The winner and the best second-placed team will advance to participate in the CONCACAF Qualifying rounds scheduled to be played in December.

Mexico, Canada, USA and a host of Central American Countries have already been qualified for this round.

The young girls should have jumped that hurdle earlier this year in Trinidad the previous hosts, but were hampered by the outbreak of the H1N1 (Swine Flu) Virus in that country.

Initially the competition should have taken place during July 30 and August 9 but due to the postponement the girls were left in limbo but did some light training during that time of uncertainty.
The following are the names of the Clubs and the girls who have been invited to training from which the core of the team travelling to Haiti will be selected.

Future SC: Shalissa Barnett, Nikki Ebanks, Shanelle Frederick, Amanda Nelson, Hannah Tatum, Monique Roberts, Brittany Ebanks

Elite SC: Cristin Jones, Latore Nixon, Jetena Bodden  Britany Mobley, Marissa McLaughlin, Chelsea Greene

Women United: Emily Kelly, Alyssa Chin, Brianna Hydes, Chelsea Bush, Shanice Monteith, Ashani Francis, Ashley Borde, Tacita Berry, Nicole Guiffre, Kaela Ebanks

Catholic School: Chelsea Brown, Tatiana Ebanks, Chloe Tatum, Katie Flemings and Gianna Bolen.
Stingrays SC: Mahalia Seymour.

Scholars International FC: Xochilt Watler and Ashleigh Shim from a USA team.

The Cayman Islands Girls are now back in training fully under the expertise of Head Coaching Bobby McLaren and Technical Director Thiago Cunha as they add the finishing touches to the girls before they face their opponents in the next two months.

Last May the girls journeyed to Jamaica for a training camp as part of their preparations for this tournament and delivered an extraordinary performance not only against the parish teams but the Jamaica National Under-17 team as well, scoring first in the 9th minute.

The results during that trip saw the Cayman Islands camp dismissing a Manchester select team 4-0, Los Perfectos Academy 2-0 and lost to the Jamaica National Under-17 Girls 3-2 at the Drax Hall play field in St Ann.

The other two games were played at Brooks Park in Mandeville.

Scoring against Manchester Select were Xothild Watler, Tacita Berry, Amanda Nelson and Shanice Montieth, while in the Los Perfectos Academy game Tacita Berry and Nikki Ebanks scored.

The Cayman Islands Under-17 Girls team have improved and have developed to a higher level since their stirring performance in November 2007 during the World Cup Girls Under 17 Qualifiers in Antigua when they were edged out by Jamaica 2-1 in a tough game after dismissing Antigua 3-0 and British Virgin Island 4-0 in previous games.