Trinidad and Tobago’s national Under-17 women’s team will hope to give a better showing today when they meet their Mexican counterparts in a second match in Mexico City.

On Thursday, T&T’s Soca Princesses gave a strong second half display but it was not enough to prevent them from going down 3-1 to Mexico in the first of two friendlies.

The Mexicans got their goals from Cinthia Sandoval (2nd minute) and a double from Fabiola Ibarra (39th, 52nd). Trinidad and Tobago pulled a goal back through Jo-Marie Lewis in the 53rd.

Following the match at Centro de Alto Rendimiento de la FMF, T&T head coach Even Pellerud gave his post-match comments, saying: ’We played a strong second half against Mexico, but was not able to recover from an unlucky start, with goals conceded in the first half.

’The match then evened out, but we were never able to match the intensity level that the team normally plays with. Assuming that altitude in Mexico City and the fact that we rested several of our starters played a role, we are still disappointed in the weak start we had to this game,’ Pellerud added.

’In the second half, we played nice attacking football and Jo-Marie Lewis capitalised on a very accurate through ball from Khadidra Debesette. We followed up with several good goal-scoring opportunities and Mexico started to look more tired than our players. The Mexican players are still more comfortable on the ball and deserved the win.

’The performance gap is still not scary and we will learn from our errors and do better in the second game on Saturday.’

T&T U-17 SQUAD: Saundra Baron (Captain), Khadisha Debesette, Mallory Archer, Rehana Omardeen, Shante Helwig, Khadidra Debesette, Annette Mims, Victoria Swift, Camille Charles, Brianna Ryce, Jo-Marie Lewis

Substitutions: Tineisha Cobham (Mallory Archer), Kayla Taylor (Rehana Omardeen), Danielle McPhun (Victoria Swift), Kedisha Castillo (Camille Charles).